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Fruit Salad Dressing

A citrusy dressing made from egg yolks, lemon juice, sugar, butter, salt, and Tabasco sauce, served with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fruit Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine the egg yolks, lemon juice, sugar, melted butter, salt, and Tabasco sauce in a double boiler.

  2. Cook the mixture over simmering water, stirring constantly until thickened.

  3. Remove from heat and let cool slightly before serving.

  4. Serve with whipped 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.

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

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

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

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

  3. Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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 and set, giving it a smooth, rich body.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that balances the richness of the yolks and butter.
Melted butter
Adds fat for a silky texture and a rich mouthfeel.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the acidity of the lemon juice.

The step that matters

Cook over simmering water while stirring constantly. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat, but if they get too hot they can scramble into lumps. Constant stirring and a double boiler keep the heat even and the custard-like texture smooth.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Strawberryfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, sauce, 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.

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