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Salad

Rich Salad Dressing

A dressing made with egg yolks, mustard, sugar, cayenne, oil, cream, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Rich Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix the dry ingredients and boiled yolks thoroughly together.

  2. Add the raw yolks and mix gradually with the oil and cream like a mayonnaise.

  3. Finally, add the vinegar.

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 + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Lecithin in the yolks lets the oil and cream blend into a stable, thick emulsion.
Oil
Provides fat that gives the dressing body, richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
Cream
Adds fat and moisture, softening the dressing and making it creamier.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the richness of the fats.
Dry mustard
Helps stabilise the emulsion and adds a sharp, pungent flavour.
Castor sugar
Adds a little sweetness that rounds out the sharpness of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Adding the raw yolks and oil and cream gradually. Egg yolk emulsifies oil into tiny droplets suspended in the cream. If the oil is added too quickly, the droplets merge and the dressing can split or look greasy instead of thick and smooth.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Horseradishfits about as well
  4. Spinachfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, pepper, cream, vinegar. 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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