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Salad Dressing

A creamy dressing made from egg yolks, vinegar, butter, mustard, salt, cayenne pepper, and sweet cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

  1. In a bowl, beat the yolks of five eggs.

  2. Add six tablespoons of boiling vinegar and place the bowl over a teakettle.

  3. Cook until very stiff, stirring constantly.

  4. Remove from heat and add two-thirds of a cup of butter, beating until smooth.

  5. Stir in two teaspoons of mustard, ¼ teaspoon of salt, and a dash of cayenne pepper.

  6. Strain through a fine sieve and thin with sweet cream.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

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

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

  5. Egg + buttertop 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the dressing and emulsify the butter into a stable, creamy base.
Butter
Adds richness and smooth body to the cooked yolk mixture.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the richness of the yolks and butter.

The step that matters

Cook until very stiff, stirring constantly. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, but overheating causes them to curdle and turn grainy. Constant stirring over gentle heat spreads the warmth evenly so the mixture thickens smoothly.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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