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Salad

One Quart Salad Dressing

A thickened salad dressing made with eggs, mustard, corn starch, vinegar, butter, olive oil, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 ↓

One Quart Salad Dressing

one quart

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Combine boiling water and vinegar in a double boiler to prevent burning when adding eggs.

  2. Mix mustard with cold water to form a smooth paste.

  3. Add corn starch, salt, and cayenne to the paste.

  4. Beat eggs lightly.

  5. Mix the beaten eggs with the mustard paste.

Cook the custard

  1. Pour the mixture into the boiling water.

  2. Stir constantly until thick.

  3. Add butter while hot.

  4. Stir until melted.

Finish the dressing

  1. Stir the yolks of 2 eggs with a silver fork.

  2. Gradually add olive oil.

  3. Add vinegar.

  4. Wait until the cooked mixture is cold.

  5. Beat in the yolk paste.

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.

  1. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Mustard + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Corn + olivetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,502 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Vinegar + olivetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  5. Corn + mustardtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together463 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thicken the cooked base and bind it into a rich, creamy structure as they set with heat.
Corn starch
Thickens the cooked mixture into a smooth, stable body as it gelatinizes in heat.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavour and helps emulsify the dressing.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Olive oil
Adds fat that emulsifies into the base for a creamy, pourable texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness.

The step that matters

Stir constantly until thick. Starch and egg proteins thicken as they heat, but they can scramble or form lumps if left unstirred over direct heat. Constant stirring keeps the custard smooth. Keeping the base in a double boiler limits how fast it heats.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, corn, vinegar, butter, coffee, olive):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, corn, vinegar, butter, coffee, olive. 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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