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Salad

Salad Dressing

A vinaigrette-style dressing made with mustard, sugar, flour, pepper, paprika, salt, vinegar, eggs, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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

Make the dressing

  1. Mix mustard, sugar, flour, pepper, paprika, and salt with a little water.

  2. Add this mixture to the well-beaten eggs.

  3. Stir this mixture into hot vinegar and butter.

  4. Cook until thick, stirring constantly.

  5. Thin with whipped cream.

Notes

  1. You can substitute part of the vinegar with lemon juice.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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 cook, giving it a smooth, rich body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the sweetness.
Flour
Stabilises the mixture and helps it thicken without breaking.
Whipped cream
Thins the cooked dressing and adds a light, creamy texture.

The step that matters

Cook until thick, stirring constantly. Egg proteins set as they heat, so the dressing can curdle or scramble if it overheats or stops being stirred. Constant stirring keeps the heat even and yields a smooth, thick result.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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