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Salad

Salad Dressing

A creamy dressing made from hard‑boiled egg yolks, oil, vinegar, mustard, sugar, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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. Rub the egg yolks, sugar, and mustard together with a spoon.

  2. Gradually add the salad oil.

  3. Mix in the cream and vinegar.

Cheaper option

  1. For a cheaper option, use diluted condensed milk instead of cream and omit the sugar.

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

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + mustardtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Their lecithin helps hold the oil and vinegar together as a stable emulsion.
Salad oil
Supplies the fat that gives the dressing its smooth, rich body.
Vinegar
Adds the sharp acidity that gives the dressing its tang.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavour and helps the oil and yolks emulsify.
Cream
Adds richness and creaminess, softening the dressing's texture.

The step that matters

Adding the oil. The oil must go in slowly, a little at a time, so the egg yolk can emulsify it. Adding it too fast can split the dressing into separate layers of oil and liquid.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Mustardthe original
  2. Cucumberfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Horseradishfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, vinegar, 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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