Skip to main content
Salad

Salad Dressing

A creamy dressing made with yolks, sugar, eggs, butter, vinegar, mustard, and sour cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Salad Dressing

Why it works: Vinegar and mustard 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 ↓

Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Mash the yolks in a bowl.

  2. Add sugar, salt, mustard, and white pepper; mix thoroughly.

  3. Stir in the beaten eggs, melted butter, and vinegar.

  4. Cook in a double boiler until thickened.

Finish and cool

  1. Remove from heat and let cool.

  2. Once cool, fold in the thick sour cream.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify with the butter and add richness and body to the dressing.
Beaten eggs
Set when heated in the double boiler, thickening the dressing into a smooth sauce.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the sugar and fat.
Sour cream
Adds tang and creaminess to the cooled dressing.

The step that matters

Cook in a double boiler until thickened. Eggs thicken gently with indirect heat. Too much heat scrambles the egg proteins, leaving lumps and a grainy texture instead of a smooth dressing.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, butter, vinegar, mustard, cream. 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.

More salad dressing recipes

Boiled 72Cream 68French 58Cooked 45Fruit 41Chicken 31 See all 528 →

You might also like

Chicken SaladChicken Salad623 recipesTomato SaladTomato Salad179 recipesCold SlawCold Slaw160 recipesFrench DressingFrench Dressing58 recipes