Skip to main content
Salad

Salad Dressing

A creamy dressing made from egg yolks, vinegar, mustard, sugar, salt, and cream or milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
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

  1. In a bowl, mash the hard-boiled egg yolks until smooth.

  2. Mix in the vinegar until no lumps remain.

  3. Add the dry mustard, salt, and castor sugar; stir to combine.

  4. Gradually mix in the cream or milk until smooth.

  5. Transfer to a salad dressing bottle and serve with 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.

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. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

  4. Mustard + sugartop 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
Mashed yolks emulsify with the cream and vinegar, giving the dressing a smooth, rich body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the richness of the yolks and cream.
Cream or milk
Adds fat and liquid that thin the mixture and give it a creamy texture.
Dry mustard
Contributes sharp aroma and helps stabilise the emulsion.
Castor sugar
Adds sweetness that rounds out the acidity of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Gradually mix in the cream or milk. Adding liquid slowly lets the egg yolk particles disperse evenly, so the dressing becomes smooth instead of separating or turning lumpy.

Swap the mustard

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

You might also like

Chicken SaladChicken Salad623 recipesTomato SaladTomato Salad179 recipesCold SlawCold Slaw160 recipesBoiled Salad DressingBoiled Salad Dressing67 recipes