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Salad

Salad Dressing Op Raw Egg

A vinaigrette made with raw egg yolks, mustard, vinegar, olive oil, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Salad Dressing Op Raw Egg

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, mix the yolks of two eggs with ½ teaspoon of mustard.

  2. Stir in 2 tablespoons of vinegar.

  3. Gradually add sweet olive oil while stirring rapidly.

  4. Add salt last to avoid curdling the dressing.

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 + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Vinegar + olivetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  4. Egg + mustardtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,210 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + olivetop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Act as the emulsifier, holding the oil and vinegar together as a smooth, thick dressing.
Mustard
Helps stabilize the emulsion so the oil stays dispersed, and adds sharp flavor.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the oil.
Sweet olive oil
Supplies fat for body, richness and a silky texture.

The step that matters

Gradually add the olive oil while stirring rapidly. Oil must be dispersed into small droplets for the yolks to emulsify it. Adding it too fast overwhelms the yolks, so the dressing separates or breaks instead of thickening.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Cucumberfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Mustardthe original
  4. Tomatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, vinegar, olive. 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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