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Salad

Boiled Salad Dressing

A thickened salad dressing made by emulsifying egg yolks, olive oil, butter, vinegar, lemon juice, salt, mustard, pepper, and powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Boiled 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 ↓

Boiled Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat the yolks of 7 eggs until thick.

  2. Slowly add 3 tablespoons of olive oil while continuing to beat.

  3. Add ½ cup melted butter.

  4. Add ⅓ cup vinegar.

  5. Add the juice of 1 small lemon.

  6. Cook in a double boiler until it begins to thicken.

  7. Remove from heat and sift in 4 teaspoons of coarse sea salt.

  8. Add 1 tablespoon of mustard.

  9. Add 1 teaspoon of white pepper.

  10. Add ½ teaspoon of red pepper.

  11. Add 3 tablespoons of powdered sugar.

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. Olive + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Mustard + peppertop 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
Emulsify the oil and butter and thicken the dressing as it cooks.
Olive oil
Adds richness and body by emulsifying into the beaten yolks.
Melted butter
Adds fat and smoothness, giving the dressing a rich mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavor and balances the richness.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and brightness that lifts the dressing's flavor.
Powdered sugar
Adds a little sweetness to balance the acidity and sharpness.

The step that matters

Cook in a double boiler until it begins to thicken. Egg yolks thicken gently with indirect heat. Too much heat scrambles the proteins into curds, so the dressing must be stirred and watched closely.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, olive, butter, vinegar, lemon, mustard, 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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