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Salad

Salad Cream Without Oil

A creamy dressing made from butter, vinegar, egg yolks, and cream, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Salad Cream Without Oil

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the vinegar and butter together in a deep bowl-shaped saucepan.

  2. Beat the egg yolks until light.

  3. Gradually pour the boiling vinegar and butter into the yolks while beating continuously.

  4. Return the mixture to the heat and beat rapidly until it begins to thicken.

  5. Slowly pour in the cream while continuing to beat until the dressing resembles cream or boiled custard. Ensure it does not boil to prevent curdling.

  6. Add salt and both peppers, then beat in a pan of ice water until cold.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Pepper + white peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  5. Vinegar + white peppertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify and thicken the dressing as they set gently with heat.
Butter
Adds richness and body, emulsified into the vinegar to give a smooth texture.
Vinegar
Provides sharp acidity that balances the richness of the butter and yolks.
Thin cream
Adds moisture and softness, lightening the texture of the thickened dressing.

The step that matters

Keep the mixture below boiling when returning it to heat and adding the cream. Egg yolks thicken when gently heated but scramble and curdle if they get too hot. Beating constantly and keeping the heat low spreads the heat evenly and keeps the emulsion smooth.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

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