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Salad

Boiled Salad Dressing

A boiled dressing made with eggs, cream, vinegar, butter, mustard, sugar, salt, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Boiled Salad Dressing

Why it works: Vinegar and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Boiled Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Beat the eggs well in a bowl.

  2. Add the cream or milk, vinegar, melted butter, mustard, sugar, salt, and cayenne pepper.

Cook and serve

  1. Cook the mixture in a double boiler until it comes to a boil, then remove it immediately.

  2. Let the dressing cool before pouring it over cold slaw, salad, or sandwiches.

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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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 creamy, emulsified body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of eggs and butter.
Melted butter
Adds fat for smoothness and a rich mouthfeel.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavor and helps stabilize the emulsion.

The step that matters

Remove from heat as soon as it boils. Egg proteins set when heated, so the mixture can curdle or turn grainy if it cooks too long. Pulling it off the heat right at the boil keeps it smooth.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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