Skip to main content
Dessert

Cooked Salad Dressing

A cooked dressing made with mustard, sugar, salt, egg yolks, vinegar, milk, butter, cayenne pepper, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Cooked Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Beat the egg yolks until very light.

  2. Mix the mustard with the vinegar.

  3. Combine all ingredients except the milk and beat thoroughly.

Cook

  1. Add the milk just before cooking.

  2. Cook in a double boiler until thick.

Serve

  1. When serving, add whipped cream to thin 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the dressing as they set under gentle heat, giving it body and richness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the richness of the yolks and butter.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavour and helps emulsify the dressing, supporting a smooth texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness, loosening the custard before it thickens.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, velvety mouthfeel.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the acidity of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Cook in a double boiler until thick. Egg yolks thicken from gentle heat but can scramble if overheated. A double boiler keeps the temperature moderate, so the dressing thickens smoothly without curdling.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes