Skip to main content
Salad

Boiled Salad Dressing

A salad dressing made by boiling butter, vinegar, sugar, salt, pepper, and eggs, then thinning with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Boiled Salad Dressing

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Boiled Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Beat the eggs in a bowl until thick.

  2. In a double boiler, combine vinegar, butter, sugar, salt, and pepper.

  3. Add the beaten eggs to the mixture.

  4. Stir over heat until it begins to thicken.

  5. Remove from heat and continue stirring until the mixture is as thick as cream sauce.

Cool and thin

  1. Let it cool completely.

  2. Add enough cream to achieve the desired consistency.

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

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

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 body and a creamy texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the dressing a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that gives the dressing its tangy flavour.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with a touch of sweetness.
Cream
Thins the thickened mixture to the desired consistency and adds richness.

The step that matters

Stir over heat until it begins to thicken. Egg proteins set as they heat, so the mixture can curdle or scramble if it gets too hot. Gentle heat and constant stirring in the double boiler keep it smooth.

“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