Skip to main content
Salad

Sana Mayonnaise—salad for Slaw

A creamy mayonnaise flavored with mustard, cayenne pepper, salt, vinegar, and sugar, used as a dressing for slaw.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Sana Mayonnaise—salad for Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, combine the raw egg yolks and mustard if using.

  2. Slowly stir in the oil, a drop at a time, until the mixture begins to thicken.

  3. Once thickened, pour in the oil in a steady stream while stirring continuously.

  4. Add cayenne pepper, salt, and vinegar to taste.

  5. The mayonnaise should be nearly as thick as soft butter.

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. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  4. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify the oil into the mixture, giving the mayonnaise its thick, creamy structure.
Oil
Forms the bulk of the emulsion, providing richness and body as droplets are dispersed in the yolk.
Mustard
Helps stabilise the emulsion so the oil stays suspended instead of separating.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness of the oil.

The step that matters

Adding the oil slowly at first. Oil must be dispersed into the yolks in small amounts so that tiny droplets form a stable emulsion. Adding it too fast can cause the mixture to break and separate into a greasy, runny liquid.

Swap the mustard

The recipe marks mustard as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, pepper, vinegar, sugar):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Cucumberfits less well
  4. Cabbagefits less well

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

You might also like

Chicken SaladChicken Salad623 recipesSalad DressingSalad Dressing491 recipesTomato SaladTomato Salad179 recipesCold SlawCold Slaw160 recipes