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Salad

Salad Dressing

A creamy salad dressing made with eggs, sweet milk or cream, vinegar, mustard, butter, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Salad Dressing

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Beat the eggs in a large bowl until very stiff.

  2. Add the sweet milk or cream and salt, then beat thoroughly.

  3. Mix the mustard with a little vinegar to avoid lumps, then add to the bowl.

  4. Stir in the sharp vinegar and melted butter, and beat again.

Cook and serve

  1. Set the bowl in a kettle of water and boil until the dressing thickens.

  2. Leave in a cool place until ready to serve; if too thick, thin with milk.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Mustard + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,003 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Beaten stiff, they structure the dressing and thicken it as they cook.
Sweet milk or cream
Adds moisture and softness, and can be used to thin the dressing if it becomes too thick.
Sharp vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the dressing its tangy flavour.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that balances the richness of the eggs and butter.
Melted butter
Adds fat, giving the dressing richness and a smooth mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Set the bowl in a kettle of water and boil until the dressing thickens. Gentle heat from the steam-warmed water cooks the beaten egg proteins slowly, thickening the dressing. Excess heat can scramble the eggs and curdle the mixture.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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