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Salad

Salad Dressing Without Oil

A thickened, oil‑free dressing made from egg yolks, mustard, vinegar, and butter, sweetened with sugar and seasoned with salt and red pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

Make the dressing

  1. Beat the egg yolks thoroughly.

  2. Mix the salt, sugar, mustard, and red pepper in a bowl.

  3. Add the vinegar to the dry mixture.

  4. Stir in the beaten egg yolks and melted butter.

  5. Cook the mixture in a double boiler until it thickens.

Store and finish

  1. Transfer the mixture to a glass jar.

  2. Store the jar in a cool place.

  3. Dilute with sweet cream to achieve 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. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Provide the main structure and thickening as they set when gently heated.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, rounder mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Supplies acidity that gives the dressing its sharp, tangy flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavour and helps keep the emulsion stable.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture in a double boiler until it thickens. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat as their proteins set. Too much heat can scramble them into lumps, so keep the heat moderate and stir constantly.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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