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Salad

Cream Dressing for Salad

A custard-like dressing made with eggs, cream, butter, mustard, vinegar, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Cream Dressing for Salad

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, beat together the eggs and cream until well combined.

  2. Add the melted butter, salt, mustard, black pepper, and vinegar; mix well.

  3. Cook the mixture in a saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly until it thickens like custard. Be careful not to let it boil too long to avoid curdling.

  4. Let the dressing cool before mixing it with your salad.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  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

Eggs
Thicken the dressing as they set during gentle cooking, giving it a custard-like body.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, softening the texture of the custard base.
Melted butter
Adds fat for smoothness and a rich mouthfeel in the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the dressing its sharp, tangy flavor.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavor and helps emulsify the dressing.

The step that matters

Cook gently and stir constantly. Egg proteins set around 160°F and curdle if overheated or left to boil, so low heat and constant stirring keep the custard smooth and thickened.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Mustardthe original
  4. Spinachfits about as well

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