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Cooked Salad Dressing with Cottage Cheese

A cooked salad dressing made with cottage cheese, eggs, butter, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 ↓

Cooked Salad Dressing with Cottage Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing base

  1. Rub together the dry ingredients: flour, mustard, salt, and sugar.

  2. Add the slightly beaten egg yolks and melted butter.

  3. Stir in the cold milk and hot vinegar until perfectly smooth.

Cook and finish

  1. Cook the mixture in a double boiler until thickened.

  2. Neutralize the cottage cheese with baking soda and fold it into the stiffly beaten egg whites.

  3. Combine this mixture with the cooked dressing.

  4. Set the pan into a bowl of cold water and beat well until cool and smooth.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cottage cheese + buttertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together376 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mustard + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks thicken the dressing when cooked, and whites are folded in for lightness.
Cottage cheese
Adds body and creamy moisture to the dressing.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Provides the tangy acidity that balances the richness.
Flour
Thickens the dressing as it cooks, giving structure.
Baking soda
Neutralizes the cottage cheese, reducing its sharpness.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture in a double boiler until thickened. Egg yolks thicken and can curdle or scramble if overheated, so gentle, indirect heat keeps the dressing smooth while the flour and yolks set.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cottage cheese, egg, butter, vinegar, flour, sugar, milk. 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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