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Salad

Cooked Salad Dressing

A thickened dressing made from egg yolks, oil or butter, sugar, salt, pepper, mustard, nutmeg, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cooked Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine egg yolks, olive oil (or butter), sugar, salt, pepper, mustard, and nutmeg.

  2. Stir constantly over low heat until thickened.

  3. Once thick, remove from heat and stir in the 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.

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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Olive + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Mustard + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the dressing as they cook, giving it a smooth, creamy body.
Olive oil or butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel in the dressing.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the sharpness of the mustard and seasonings.
Cream
Stirred in off the heat to add richness and a lighter, softer texture.

The step that matters

Stir constantly over low heat until thickened. Egg yolks set when heated, and if they get too hot or are left unstirred they can scramble into lumps. Gentle, constant stirring over low heat thickens the mixture evenly into a smooth dressing.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, olive, sugar, pepper, nutmeg, 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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