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Salad

Dressing for Raw Tomatoes

A creamy dressing made with egg yolks, butter, mustard, vinegar, and cornstarch, suitable for raw tomatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Dressing for Raw Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dressing

  1. Beat the egg yolks in a bowl until well mixed.

  2. Add the butter and beat again until combined.

  3. Stir in the cold water, mustard, vinegar, salt, red pepper, and sugar.

  4. Dissolve the cornstarch in cold water and add to the mixture.

Cook and thicken

  1. Cook the mixture in a double boiler over low heat, stirring until thickened but do not let it boil.

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

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

  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
Emulsify with the butter and thicken the dressing as they gently cook.
Butter
Adds richness and smoothness, giving the dressing a silky body.
Cornstarch
Thickens the liquid into a smooth, stable texture when heated.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the richness.

The step that matters

Cook gently without boiling. Egg yolks begin to set around 160°F and can curdle or scramble if overheated. Low heat in a double boiler lets the cornstarch thicken the dressing while the yolks thicken it gently and evenly.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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