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Salad

Ellsworth Salad Dressing

A salad dressing made with egg yolks, sugar, mustard, salt, red pepper, vinegar, melted butter, and whipped cream.

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 ↓

Ellsworth Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the base

  1. Beat the yolks of 3 eggs until light.

  2. Add 1 tablespoon sugar, 1 tablespoon mustard, 1 teaspoon salt, a pinch of red pepper, and ½ cup vinegar.

  3. Cook the mixture until it thickens like custard.

Finish the dressing

  1. Remove from heat and fold in the beaten egg whites.

  2. Stir in 2 tablespoons melted butter and ¼ pint whipped cream.

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

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

  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

Egg yolks
Thicken the dressing into a custard-like texture as they set with gentle heat.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the richness of the yolks and butter.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that rounds out the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that gives the dressing its character.
Melted butter
Adds fat for smoothness and a rich mouthfeel.
Whipped cream
Adds fat and air, lightening the texture and softening the dressing.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture until it thickens like custard. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat, but high heat can scramble them into lumps. Cook slowly and keep stirring so the mixture thickens smoothly.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Potatofits about as well

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