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Salad

Salad Dressing

A creamy dressing made from hard‑boiled egg yolk, mustard, pepper, cream, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Salad Dressing

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 ↓

Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the egg

  1. Boil the egg until hard, about 10-12 minutes.

  2. Place the egg in cold water, then remove the shell.

Make the dressing

  1. Pound the yolk in a mortar until smooth.

  2. Add the mustard, white pepper, cayenne, salt, and cream; stir until well combined.

  3. Gradually add vinegar until the dressing reaches a creamy consistency.

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

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

  4. White pepper + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  5. White pepper + vinegartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolk
Its fat and emulsifying lecithin help bind the dressing into a smooth, creamy texture.
Cream
Adds fat and moisture, giving the dressing a rich, smooth body.
Mixed mustard
Its emulsifiers help hold the fat and vinegar together, and it adds sharpness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and thins the dressing to the right consistency.

The step that matters

Gradually add vinegar. Adding vinegar slowly lets the yolk and cream emulsify smoothly; adding it all at once can break the mixture so it turns thin or separates.

Swap the white pepper

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, mustard, pepper, cream, 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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