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 ↓
Salad Dressing
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dressing
Mix sugar, salt, mustard, milk, eggs, and butter in a bowl.
Place the mixture in a double boiler and heat until it boils, stirring constantly.
Add vinegar and bring to a boil again.
Adjust and serve
If the dressing is too thick when cold, add cream to thin it.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together14,067 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,806 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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 cook and set, giving it body.
- Butter
- Adds richness and smooths the texture of the dressing.
- Vinegar
- Adds the sharp acidity that balances the sweetness.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the dressing to balance the vinegar's sharpness.
- Mustard
- Adds sharp flavour and helps emulsify the dressing.
The step that matters
Heating the egg mixture in the double boiler. Eggs thicken gently at moderate heat but can curdle or scramble if overheated. Constant stirring over indirect heat keeps the custard-like mixture smooth.
Swap the mustard
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, milk, vinegar, egg, butter):
- Capsicumfits about as well
- Potatofits about as well
- Mustardthe original
- Asparagusfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, vinegar, egg, butter. 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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