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Salad

Salad Dressing

A vinaigrette made with egg yolks, vinegar, butter, mustard, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Salad Dressing

Why it works: Cider and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,431 recipes. Both carry 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a bowl, beat the yolks of four eggs with two tablespoons of strong cider vinegar until light.

  2. In a saucepan, heat six tablespoons of vinegar until it boils.

  3. Stir the beaten eggs into the boiling vinegar and cook until thickened.

Finish the dressing

  1. Return the mixture to the bowl and add a piece of butter, pepper, salt, and mustard if desired.

  2. Once cool, mix in half a pint of whipped cream.

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. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  2. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Walnut + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together849 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the vinegar as they cook and give the dressing its rich body.
Whipped cream
Adds lightness and a creamy texture to the finished dressing.
Butter
Adds richness and a smoother, rounder mouthfeel to the dressing.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that cuts through the rich yolks and cream.

The step that matters

Cooking the eggs into the boiling vinegar. Egg yolks thicken when heated, but if they are added too slowly or the heat is too high they can scramble into lumps. Stirring the beaten eggs into the vinegar and cooking only until thickened keeps the mixture smooth.

Swap the mustard

The recipe marks mustard as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, cider, vinegar, butter, walnut, pepper, cream):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cider, vinegar, butter, walnut, pepper, 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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