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Boiled Dressing

A thickened dressing made with salt, mustard, cayenne pepper, sugar, flour, egg yolks, butter, milk, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Boiled Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In the upper part of a double boiler, mix the dry ingredients.

  2. Add the well-beaten egg yolks and milk.

  3. Slowly add the vinegar; cook over boiling water, stirring constantly until thick.

  4. Remove from heat, add butter, strain, and cool.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mustard + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Coagulate as they heat, thickening the dressing and giving it body.
Flour
Its starch swells with heat, helping thicken the dressing.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the finished dressing.
Milk
Provides the liquid base and adds creaminess.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the richness.
Sugar
Adds mild sweetness to balance the sharp vinegar.

The step that matters

Cook while stirring constantly until thick. Egg yolks can scramble if they overheat or sit still. Constant stirring over gentle heat keeps the dressing smooth while the yolks and flour thicken it.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, sugar, flour, egg, butter, milk, 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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