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Salad

Salad Dressing

A vinaigrette-like dressing made with salt, mustard, sugar, flour, cayenne or paprika, eggs, vinegar, water, oil, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Salad Dressing

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

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl.

  2. Add the 2 slightly beaten eggs and mix well.

  3. Slowly beat in the oil.

  4. Add the vinegar and water, then stir in the milk.

  5. Cook in a double boiler until thickened.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Eggs
Thicken the dressing as they set during cooking and bind it into a smooth emulsion.
Oil
Adds richness and body, and helps form a smooth emulsion with the eggs.
Flour
Thickens the liquid so the dressing becomes creamy and holds together.
Vinegar
Adds the sharp acidity that gives the dressing its tang.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the vinegar and mustard with a touch of sweetness.

The step that matters

Cook in a double boiler until thickened. Gentle, indirect heat lets the egg proteins and flour starch thicken the dressing slowly. Overheating can curdle the eggs, so the mixture should be stirred and cooked only until it coats a spoon.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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