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Mustard Dressing

A vinaigrette-style dressing made with mustard, egg yolk, oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper.

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 ↓

Mustard Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the emulsion

  1. In a bowl, mix the mustard and boiling water with salt and pepper until smooth.

  2. Slowly stir this mixture into the egg yolk.

  3. Add the oil drop by drop while stirring steadily in one direction.

Finish and store

  1. Incorporate vinegar to taste, ensuring the mixture does not crack or curdle.

  2. Store in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks. If the oil separates, mix in a few drops of vinegar to re-emulsify.

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. 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 + mustardtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,210 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + vinegartop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and vinegar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,922 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 yolk
Lecithin in the yolk holds oil and water together, forming a stable emulsion that makes the dressing thick.
Oil
Supplies the fat that, dispersed in droplets, gives the dressing its body and smooth texture.
Mustard
Its natural emulsifiers help stabilise the emulsion and add sharp flavour.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens flavour and helps keep the emulsion stable once added.

The step that matters

Adding the oil drop by drop while stirring steadily. If oil goes in too fast, the droplets cannot be coated by the yolk and mustard, so the emulsion breaks and the dressing turns greasy and separated instead of thick and smooth.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, 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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