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Mayonnaise Dressing

A cold egg yolk and oil emulsion dressing flavored with vinegar, salt, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,814 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Mayonnaise Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Keep eggs, vinegar, and oil on ice until mixing.

  2. Set a bowl in a pan of cracked ice.

  3. Carefully break the yolks into the bowl, avoiding any whites.

Make the mayonnaise

  1. Beat the yolks slowly and evenly, adding 1 drop of oil every minute for 10 minutes.

  2. Then add 3 drops of oil each minute until the mixture is smooth.

  3. Mix in vinegar, alternating with 1 teaspoon of oil, adding ½ teaspoon of vinegar every 2 minutes.

  4. Add salt and pepper, whip vigorously for 5 minutes.

  5. Pour into a glass or silver pitcher and keep on ice until serving.

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

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

  2. Egg + vinegartop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Egg and vinegar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,922 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

Egg yolks
Emulsifies the oil into the vinegar, forming a thick, smooth, stable sauce.
Salad oil
Provides the fat that, dispersed in tiny droplets, gives the dressing its body and richness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the richness and brightens the flavour.

The step that matters

Adding the oil slowly at the start. Egg yolk can only hold tiny oil droplets when oil enters very slowly. Adding it too fast overwhelms the yolk, so the emulsion breaks and the sauce turns oily and runny.

“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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