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Salad

Salad Dressing. — No. 3.

A creamy mustard-based salad dressing made with butter, oil, vinegar, cream, eggs, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Salad Dressing. — No. 3.

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Scald the cream in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in the butter and vinegar.

  3. Beat the egg yolks in a bowl and add them to the cream mixture, stirring well to prevent curdling.

  4. Cook until thickened, then remove from heat.

Finish and serve

  1. Let it cool, then mix in the mustard, cayenne pepper, and salt.

  2. Optionally, beat the egg whites until light and fold them into the mixture when cold.

  3. For added flavor, include a little extract of celery.

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. 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. 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
Yolks thicken the cream as they cook, giving the dressing its body.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the dressing.
Rich cream
Provides the fat and body that make up most of the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and balances the richness.
Mixed mustard
Contributes sharp flavor and helps emulsify the dressing.

The step that matters

Adding the yolks to the hot cream. Egg yolks scramble and curdle if they meet hot liquid too quickly. Beating them first and stirring constantly while adding them to the cream keeps the mixture smooth as it thickens.

Swap the mustard

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

  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 butter, vinegar, cream, pepper, egg. 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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