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Salad

A Nice Salad Dressing

A dressing made from egg yolks, mustard, sugar, salt, cream, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

A Nice Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mash the hot egg yolks with the vinegar in a bowl.

  2. Add the mustard, sugar, salt, and cream.

  3. Mix until smooth and well combined.

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

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

  3. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

  4. Mustard + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify and thicken the dressing, giving it a smooth, creamy body.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavour and helps stabilise the emulsion so the dressing does not separate.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness of the yolks.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard with gentle sweetness.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, loosening the dressing to a smooth, pourable texture.

The step that matters

Mix until smooth and well combined. Egg yolks and mustard must be fully blended with the other ingredients so the dressing forms a stable, even emulsion. Under-mixing leaves lumps and streaks, and the dressing can separate.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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