Name: English Sauce for Salad, Cold Meat, or Cold Fisii
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; 1 tablespoon common or French vinegar

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 Fisii

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
1 tablespoon common or French vinegar

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.
Add salt, sugar, cayenne, and cold water; mix well.

Make the sauce

Gradually stir in the sweet cream or olive oil until the sauce resembles custard.
Add chili vinegar and enough common or French vinegar to taste.
For extra flavor, consider adding eschalot vinegar, Harvey’s sauce, anchovy essence, French mustard, tarragon vinegar, or a small piece of bruised 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: Cooked and mashed yolks form the base that thickens into a smooth, custard-like sauce.
Sweet cream or olive oil: Fat emulsified into the yolks gives the sauce its rich, smooth body.
Chili vinegar: Adds sharp acidity and heat that cut through the richness of the yolks and fat.
Common or french vinegar: Adds acidity that balances the sauce, added to taste.
Powdered sugar: Adds gentle sweetness that rounds out the sharpness of the vinegars.

The step that matters

Gradually stir in the cream or oil. Adding the fat slowly lets it emulsify into the yolks, so the sauce thickens smoothly like custard. Adding it all at once can cause it to separate and turn 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.

Chicken Salad623 recipes

Salad Dressing491 recipes

Tomato Salad179 recipes

Cold Slaw160 recipes

Like knowing why a recipe works?

The free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.

Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.

English Sauce for Salad, Cold Meat, or Cold Fisii