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Salad

Salad Dressing

A creamy dressing made with cream, butter, egg yolks, lemon juice, vinegar, sugar, mustard, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Salad Dressing

Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the seasoning

  1. In a bowl, mix and sift the sugar, salt, mustard, and both peppers.

  2. Slowly add the cream while stirring constantly until smooth, then set aside.

Make the dressing

  1. Beat the egg yolks until light, then gradually add the melted butter while beating continuously.

  2. Slowly add the lemon juice, then the cream mixture, and finally the vinegar, beating well after each addition.

  3. Place the mixture in a double boiler and stir until it thickens.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Cream + sugartop 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
Emulsify the butter and thicken the dressing as they set with gentle heat.
Melted butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the emulsion.
Cream
Adds body and softness, cushioning the dressing's sharp acidity.
White vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness.
Lemon juice
Adds fresh acidity and aroma that lifts the rich, creamy base.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that rounds out the sharpness of the vinegar and lemon.

The step that matters

Heating in the double boiler. Egg yolks thicken as their proteins set, but if the heat is too high or unmoving they can scramble and turn grainy. Gentle, constant stirring over simmering water keeps the dressing smooth while it thickens.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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