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Salad

Salad Dressing Without Oil

A creamy, oil-free dressing made with eggs, mustard, vinegar, lemon, butter, and optional cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Salad Dressing Without Oil

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, combine the mashed egg yolks, beaten raw eggs, dry mustard, sugar, white wine vinegar, lemon juice, and melted butter.

  2. Beat the mixture until very light and fluffy.

  3. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Thicken and adjust

  1. Transfer the mixture to a double boiler and continue to beat while it thickens.

  2. If the dressing is too thick, add a little cream to reach 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.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  5. White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

What each ingredient does

Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add body and a smooth, rich texture as they emulsify into the dressing.
Raw eggs
Provide structure and thickening as their proteins set when gently heated while beaten.
Melted butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the dressing a silky mouthfeel.
White wine vinegar
Supplies acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the richness.
Dry mustard
Acts as an emulsifier helping the fat and liquids stay blended.

The step that matters

Thickening over the double boiler. Egg proteins set as they warm, so heat must stay gentle and the mixture must be beaten constantly. Too much heat scrambles the eggs and the dressing curdles instead of thickening smoothly.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, white wine, vinegar, lemon, butter, pepper. 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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