Skip to main content
Salad

Cooked Salad Dressing

A thickened salad dressing made by cooking eggs, butter, vinegar, and spices, then folded with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Cooked Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine the beaten eggs, mustard, salt, curry powder, celery salt, sugar, and pepper in a bowl.

  2. Melt the butter over low heat in a saucepan, then add the vinegar and the egg mixture.

  3. Cook over steam, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens.

  4. Remove from heat and fold in the whipped 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 + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

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, giving it a smooth, creamy body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the dressing a smooth, mellow mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and balances the richness of the butter and eggs.
Whipped cream
Folded in at the end to lighten the dressing and add a soft, airy texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that rounds out the sharpness of the vinegar and spices.

The step that matters

Cook over steam while stirring constantly. Egg proteins set and thicken with gentle heat. If the mixture gets too hot or is left unstirred, the eggs can scramble and turn grainy, so low, steady heat and constant stirring keep the dressing smooth.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Celerythe original

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

Chicken SaladChicken Salad623 recipesSalad DressingSalad Dressing491 recipesTomato SaladTomato Salad179 recipesCold SlawCold Slaw160 recipes