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Mayonnaise Dressing Without Oil

A mayonnaise dressing made without oil, using eggs, mustard, cornstarch, sugar, salt, pepper, milk, vinegar, butter, and optional whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Mayonnaise Dressing Without Oil

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Beat the yolks of the eggs with mustard, cornstarch, sugar, salt, and pepper.

  2. Heat the milk and bring the vinegar to a boil.

Cook and finish

  1. Stir the egg mixture into the boiling vinegar and cook until thick.

  2. Remove from heat and add the butter, stirring until melted.

  3. Let cool and add whipped cream if desired.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mustard + walnuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together849 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  5. Pepper + walnuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,039 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks thicken and bind the mixture as their proteins set when heated.
Cornstarch
Thickens the mixture as it heats with the liquid, giving body without oil.
Vinegar
Adds acidity and sharp tang that balances the richness of the dish.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, softer texture.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavour and helps stabilise the emulsified texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and a creamy body to the mixture.

The step that matters

Stir the egg mixture into the boiling vinegar. Egg yolk proteins set when heated and can curdle if the mixture overheats or is not stirred. Constant stirring keeps the mixture smooth while the cornstarch thickens it.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Beansfits about as well
  2. Walnutthe original
  3. Sesamefits about as well
  4. Almondfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, mustard, sugar, pepper, milk, vinegar, 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.

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