Skip to main content
Salad

Salad Dressings, to Make Cold

A vinaigrette dressing made with mustard, salt, vinegar, egg yolk, oil or butter, and optional vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Mustard and vinegar 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 ↓

Salad Dressings, to Make Cold

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a soup plate, mix the mustard and salt with enough vinegar to form a paste using a fork.

  2. Add the egg yolk and stir thoroughly.

  3. Gradually add the sweet oil or melted butter, one teaspoon at a time, while mixing continuously.

  4. If the dressing becomes too thick, add a teaspoon of vinegar as needed.

  5. Continue adding oil or butter and vinegar until you reach the desired quantity and consistency.

Season and serve

  1. Taste and adjust seasoning with more salt or vinegar if necessary.

  2. Pour the dressing over chopped cold potatoes or other cold dishes and mix well.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Mustard + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,003 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Vinegar + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Mustard + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,210 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg yolk
Emulsifies the oil and vinegar so the dressing stays thick and smooth.
Ground mustard
Helps stabilise the emulsion and adds a sharp, pungent flavour.
Sweet oil or melted butter
Provides fat that gives the dressing body and a rich mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness of the fat.

The step that matters

Adding the oil or butter gradually. Adding fat slowly while mixing lets the egg yolk and mustard break it into tiny droplets. Adding it too fast can split the dressing into separated oil and liquid.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Cucumberfits about as well
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Mustardthe original
  4. Chivefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against 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.

You might also like

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