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Mayonnaise Dressing Without Oil

A creamy dressing made with salt, mustard, sugar, flour, cayenne pepper, butter, cream or milk, and vinegar, cooked until thick.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Mayonnaise Dressing Without Oil

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a saucepan, combine salt, mustard, sugar, flour, and cayenne pepper.

  2. Add the butter and cream (or milk) to the mixture.

  3. Stir in the vinegar and mix well.

Cook

  1. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens to the consistency of 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 + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Thickens the mixture as it cooks, giving the dressing body.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, fatty mouthfeel to the dressing.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, helping the dressing stay smooth and creamy.
Vinegar
Adds acidity, giving the dressing its tangy, mayonnaise-like bite.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavor and helps emulsify the dressing.

The step that matters

Cook over low heat, stirring constantly. Flour starch thickens only when heated, and gentle heat with constant stirring keeps the starch dispersed so it thickens evenly without lumps or scorching on the pan bottom.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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