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Salad Cream

A creamy dressing made with mustard, salt, sugar, egg, cream, vinegar, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Salad Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Mix the mustard, salt, sugar, and beaten egg in a bowl.

  2. Pour in the cream and scalded vinegar, then add the melted butter.

  3. Cook the mixture in a double boiler until it thickens slightly.

  4. Strain the mixture and let it cool.

Serve

  1. Serve over cold slaw.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg
Thickens the dressing as it cooks and helps emulsify the fats into a smooth body.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the dressing.
Cream
Adds body and mild richness, softening the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that gives the dressing its tang.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard with sweetness.

The step that matters

Cooking the mixture in a double boiler. Egg proteins thicken gently at moderate heat. If the mixture gets too hot, the egg can scramble and curdle, leaving the dressing grainy. Gentle, indirect heat and constant stirring keep it smooth, which is why straining afterward is also useful.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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