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Salad

Salad Dressing

A creamy dressing made from egg yolks, butter, milk, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Salad Dressing

Why it works: Butter and milk 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

  1. In a bowl, mash the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs until smooth.

  2. Mix in the melted butter, salt, dry mustard, sugar, and pepper.

  3. Gradually stir in the milk or cream and enough vinegar to thicken the mixture.

  4. Boil the mixture while stirring briskly until smooth, even if it curdles.

  5. If not using cream, dissolve corn-starch in the milk to help thicken.

Serve

  1. Use the egg whites to garnish the salad.

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.

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.

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

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

  4. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  5. Pepper + corntop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 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
Yolks thicken as they heat and add richness to the dressing.
Melted butter
Adds fat for a smooth, rich mouthfeel.
Milk or cream
Provides the liquid body that the dressing thickens around.
Corn-starch
Thickens the liquid when heated, used in place of cream.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the richness of the dressing.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the vinegar's tang.

The step that matters

Boil while stirring briskly. Egg proteins set when heated, and uneven heat can make them curdle. Stirring briskly keeps the heat even and breaks up small curds, so the dressing thickens smoothly.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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