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Salad

Salad Dressing Without Oil

A thick, tangy salad dressing made without oil, using eggs, butter, mustard, sugar, cream, vinegar, salt, and cayenne pepper.

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 ↓

Salad Dressing Without Oil

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine eggs, salt, butter, mustard, sugar, cream, and cayenne pepper in a bowl.

  2. Cook the mixture over boiling water until thickened.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the vinegar.

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg proteins set as the mixture heats, thickening it into a smooth body.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a silky mouthfeel in the dressing.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavor and helps hold the mixture together smoothly.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the mustard and vinegar.
Cream
Adds richness and body, softening the dressing's texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity, giving the dressing its tangy, bright flavor.

The step that matters

Cooking over boiling water until thickened. Egg proteins set gently and evenly over moderate heat, giving a smooth thickened dressing. Too much heat or too long cooking can curdle or scramble the eggs, so the mixture should be stirred and watched closely.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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