Name: English Sauce for Salad, Cold Meat, or Cold Pish
Ingredients: 2 hard-boiled egg yolks; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; 1 tablespoon powdered sugar; a few grains cayenne pepper; 1 teaspoon cold water; ½ cup sweet cream or 6 tablespoons olive oil; 1 tablespoon strong chili vinegar; common or French vinegar to taste

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

English Sauce for Salad, Cold Meat, or Cold Pish

Ingredients

2 hard-boiled egg yolks
¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt
1 tablespoon powdered sugar
a few grains cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon cold water
½ cup sweet cream or 6 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon strong chili vinegar
common or French vinegar to taste

Directions

Prepare the yolks

Boil the egg yolks for at least 15 minutes and let them cool.
Mash the yolks with a wooden spoon until smooth.

Make the sauce

Add salt, sugar, cayenne, and cold water; mix well.
Gradually stir in the sweet cream or olive oil until the sauce resembles custard.
Add chili vinegar and common or French vinegar to taste.
For extra flavor, consider adding eschalot vinegar, Harvey's sauce, essence of anchovies, French mustard, tarragon vinegar, or a small piece of garlic.

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.

Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,806 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Pepper + creamtop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together21,449 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Pepper and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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: Hard-boiled and mashed, they form the body of the sauce and thicken it into a custard-like texture.
Sweet cream or olive oil: Added gradually, the fat emulsifies with the yolks to give the sauce its rich, smooth body.
Chili vinegar: Adds acidity and sharp heat that cut through the richness of the yolks and fat.

The step that matters

Gradually stir in the cream or oil. Adding the fat slowly lets the yolk particles coat and hold the droplets, forming a stable emulsion. Adding it too fast can cause the sauce to split and turn loose and greasy.

“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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English Sauce for Salad, Cold Meat, or Cold Pish