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Salad

Salad Dressing for Sandwiches

A creamy dressing made with eggs, butter, vinegar, mustard, pepper, salt, and optional water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and mustard 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 Dressing for Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a double boiler, combine the eggs, butter, vinegar, and mustard.

  2. Stir until the mixture thickens to a creamy consistency.

  3. Add pepper and coarse sea salt to taste.

  4. If the vinegar is too sour, add a little water.

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. Vinegar + mustardtop 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. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thicken into a creamy emulsion as they gently cook over the double boiler.
Butter
Adds richness and smoothness, helping the dressing turn silky rather than sharp.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that gives the dressing its tang.
Mustard
Helps stabilise the emulsion and adds a sharp, savoury note.

The step that matters

Stir until the mixture thickens. Eggs thicken as their proteins gently set with heat. If the heat is too high or stirring stops, the eggs can scramble and the dressing turns lumpy. Keep the water in the double boiler gently simmering and stir constantly.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, vinegar, 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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