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Mayonnaise Dressing Without Oil

A creamy, oil-free mayonnaise made with eggs, butter, flour, milk, vinegar, mustard, sugar, salt, cayenne pepper, and lemon juice.

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

Make the base

  1. Beat the eggs well.

  2. Stir in the sugar, salt, mustard, and cayenne pepper.

  3. Add the vinegar.

  4. Melt the butter and cream it into the flour.

Cook and finish

  1. Bring the milk to a boil.

  2. Pour the egg mixture and flour mixture into the boiling milk.

  3. Cook until thick, stirring constantly.

  4. If more acidity is needed, add lemon juice after removing from heat.

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. Butter + milktop 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 + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mustard + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Eggs
Thicken and set as they cook, giving the sauce body and structure.
Flour
Thickens the mixture with the butter, giving a stable, creamy body.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, fatty mouthfeel.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the eggs and flour thicken.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the sauce a sharp, tangy flavour.

The step that matters

Cook until thick, stirring constantly. Egg proteins set at moderate heat and can curdle or scramble if overheated or left unstirred. Constant stirring keeps heat even so the sauce thickens smoothly.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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