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Salad

Uncooked Salad Dressing

A cold salad dressing made with egg yolk, mustard, vinegar, salt, pepper, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Uncooked Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Beat the egg yolk in a bowl.

  2. Add mustard, salt, pepper, and vinegar to the yolk.

  3. Finally, mix in the cream.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately.

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

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

  4. Pepper + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Pepper and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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

Egg yolk
Emulsifies the cream and vinegar, giving the dressing a smooth, thick body.
Mustard
Helps hold the emulsion together and adds a sharp, tangy flavour.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the cream.
Cream
Supplies fat and body, making the dressing rich and smooth.

The step that matters

Mix in the cream. Cream is added last and must be combined gently with the yolk and vinegar mixture. Adding it too quickly or over-whipping can cause the emulsion to break or the dressing to turn grainy or separate.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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