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Dessert

Cooked Salad Dressing

A butter-based dressing with mustard, sugar, salt, cayenne, vinegar, hot water, egg yolks, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cooked Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter in a bowl.

  2. Add mustard, sugar, salt, and cayenne pepper to the melted butter.

  3. Beat the egg yolks well and mix them smoothly with the mustard mixture.

  4. Heat the butter mixture and gradually add the vinegar and hot water.

  5. Mix the flour with a little water, then add it to the mixture and cook until it thickens.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mustard + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken and enrich the dressing as they set with gentle heat, giving body and richness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the dressing its sharp, tangy flavour.
Flour
Thickens the liquid as its starch swells when cooked, giving the dressing body.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, softening the sharpness of the vinegar.
Mustard
Adds pungent flavour and helps emulsify the dressing.

The step that matters

Cook until it thickens. Flour starch only thickens fully when cooked, and egg yolks can curdle if overheated. Heat gently and keep stirring so the dressing becomes smooth and thick rather than lumpy or scrambled.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, pepper, vinegar, egg, flour):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Mustardthe original
  4. Chivefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, pepper, vinegar, egg, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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