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Dessert

Cooked Salad Dressing

A thickened dressing made from egg yolk, mustard, salt, sugar, Tabasco, onion juice, butter, flour, vinegar, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cooked Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, mix the egg yolk, dry mustard, coarse sea salt, powdered sugar, Tabasco sauce, onion juice, melted butter, and flour.

  2. Beat the mixture well and add the vinegar.

  3. Place the bowl in a vessel of hot water and cook until thickened, stirring constantly.

Finish

  1. Once cooled, fold in the whipped cream or heavy sweet 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. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mustard + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,120 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Egg yolk
Emulsifies and thickens the dressing as it cooks, giving it a rich body.
Flour
Stabilizes the cooked mixture so it thickens smoothly without breaking.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and balances the richness of the yolk and cream.
Melted butter
Adds fat for a smooth, rich mouthfeel.
Whipped cream
Adds moisture and lightness, softening the texture of the finished dressing.

The step that matters

Cook until thickened, stirring constantly. Egg yolk thickens when heated, but if it gets too hot or sits still it can scramble. Constant stirring over gentle hot water keeps the mixture smooth and evenly thickened.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

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