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Salad

Salad Dressing for Lettuce or Cabbage

A vinaigrette-style dressing made with vinegar, water, sugar, butter, eggs, mustard, salt, pepper, and vinegar, served over chopped cabbage.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 Lettuce or Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Combine vinegar, cold water, white sugar, and butter in a granite pan.

  2. Heat the mixture just to simmer.

  3. Beat the eggs in a separate bowl. Mix in mustard, salt, black pepper, and a little cold vinegar.

  4. Add the egg mixture to the pan.

  5. Stir until the mixture boils.

  6. Remove the pan from heat.

  7. Let the dressing cool.

Serve

  1. Pour the dressing over finely chopped cabbage.

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. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

  5. Butter + eggtop 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

Eggs
Thicken the dressing as they cook, giving it body and a creamy texture.
White sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that gives the dressing its tang.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the dressing.
Mustard
Adds a sharp, pungent flavour that complements the eggs and vinegar.

The step that matters

Stir until the mixture boils. Egg proteins set and thicken the dressing when heated, but if the egg is overheated or curdles it turns grainy. Stir steadily so the egg cooks evenly and the dressing thickens smoothly.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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