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Salad

Lettuce Dressing

A dressing made with egg, vinegar, sugar, butter, mustard, salt, and cream.

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 ↓

Lettuce Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Wet the mustard in a little vinegar.

  2. Heat all ingredients except the egg and cream over steam.

  3. Add the beaten egg, then stir in the 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. Vinegar + mustardtop 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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thicken the dressing as they set gently with heat, giving body and structure.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness and richness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, rounded texture and mouthfeel.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, softening the sharpness of the vinegar.
Mustard
Adds a sharp, aromatic flavour that cuts through the richness.

The step that matters

Adding the beaten egg. Egg proteins thicken gently when heated, but too much heat makes them scramble and curdle. Keep the heat low over steam and stir steadily while adding the egg so the dressing thickens smoothly.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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