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Salad

Salad Dressing Without Oil

A creamy, oil‑free salad dressing made with egg yolks, mustard, sugar, vinegar, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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. In a double boiler, combine the egg yolks, salt, mustard, and sugar; stir well.

  2. Add the vinegar and cook until thick, stirring constantly.

  3. Remove from heat and beat with an egg beater until cool.

Store and serve

  1. Store in the refrigerator; it will keep for weeks.

  2. When ready to use, add cream to thin the dressing.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

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

  4. Mustard + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the dressing as they set during gentle cooking, giving it body and emulsifying richness.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that defines the dressing's flavor and helps it thicken with the yolks.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavor and helps stabilize the emulsion.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the vinegar with sweetness.
Cream
Thins the thickened dressing to a pourable consistency and adds richness.

The step that matters

Cooking the yolk mixture until thick. Egg yolks thicken as their proteins set with heat, but overheating will scramble them into lumps. Cook gently over the double boiler while stirring constantly, so the mixture thickens smoothly.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Mustardthe original
  2. Cucumberfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Horseradishfits about as well

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