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Salad

Sweet Salad Dressing

A sweet and tangy dressing made with vinegar, mustard, butter, brown sugar, eggs, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and mustard 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 ↓

Sweet Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Beat all ingredients together until smooth.

Cook and finish

  1. Cook over low heat until thickened to the consistency of sour cream.

  2. Thin with cream as desired.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Mustard + walnuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together849 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Walnut + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Eggs
Their proteins set as they heat, thickening the dressing and giving it body.
Flour
Starch thickens the mixture during cooking and helps it hold together.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness of the sugar.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a mild caramel note.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
Mustard
Adds a sharp, savory bite that cuts through the sweetness.

The step that matters

Cooking over low heat until thickened. Eggs thicken as their proteins set, but high heat makes them curdle or scramble. Gentle, steady heat and constant stirring give a smooth, thick dressing.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Cashew nutfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, mustard, butter, sugar, egg, flour. 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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