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Salad

Salad Dressing

A vinaigrette-style dressing made with vinegar, water, pepper, salt, mustard, sugar, flour, eggs, and heavy cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Salad Dressing

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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Heat the water in a pot, but do not let it boil.

  2. In a bowl, mix the pepper, salt, mustard, sugar, and flour with a little water to moisten.

Make the dressing

  1. Add the eggs to the mixture and pour it slowly into the vinegar.

  2. Cook the mixture over low heat until it thickens.

  3. Thin the dressing with heavy cream to your desired consistency.

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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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 and set, giving it body.
Flour
Helps thicken the dressing and stabilize it against curdling.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the dressing its tangy flavor.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Heavy cream
Adds fat and richness, softening the dressing's texture.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture over low heat until it thickens. Egg proteins set at moderate temperatures, and high heat can scramble the eggs and curdle the dressing. Gentle heat and steady stirring keep it smooth.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Horseradishfits about as well
  4. Spinachfits about as well

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