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Boiled Dressing

A dressing made by boiling a mixture of flour, mustard, salt, sugar, red pepper, vinegar, water, butter, and egg yolks.

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 ↓

Boiled Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour, mustard, salt, sugar, and red pepper.

  2. Carefully add the vinegar and water to the dry ingredients and heat until boiling hot.

  3. Beat the egg yolks in a separate bowl.

Make the dressing

  1. Slowly pour the boiling mixture onto the beaten yolks while continuously beating.

  2. Add the butter in small pieces and mix until combined.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + mustardtop 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).

Flour and butter 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 the dressing as they cook gently in the hot liquid, and add richness.
Flour
Thickens the liquid by swelling with heat, giving the dressing body.
Vinegar
Adds the sharp acidity that defines the dressing's tangy flavour.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the vinegar with sweetness.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother, silkier mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Pouring the boiling mixture onto the yolks. Adding hot liquid to yolks too quickly can scramble them. Pour slowly while beating constantly so the yolks warm gradually and thicken smoothly without curdling.

Swap the mustard

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

  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 flour, sugar, pepper, vinegar, butter, egg. 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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