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Mayonnaise Dressing

A homemade mayonnaise dressing made with olive oil, lemon juice, salt, paprika, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Mayonnaise Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the yolks

  1. Separate the yolks carefully and place them in a mixing bowl.

  2. Beat the yolks slightly using a mixer.

Make the dressing

  1. Add the olive oil drop by drop while stirring steadily until half the oil is incorporated.

  2. Alternate adding lemon juice and the remaining oil until well blended.

  3. Season to taste, then pour into a pint jar, seal tightly, and refrigerate for up to two weeks.

  4. To use, thin with whipped cream or beaten egg white if desired.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Olive + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Olive + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks (in the method)
Emulsifier that holds the oil and lemon juice together as a smooth, thick dressing.
Olive oil
Provides the fat that gives the dressing its rich body and mouthfeel.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the richness of the oil.

The step that matters

Adding the olive oil drop by drop. Oil must be dispersed into the yolks in tiny droplets while stirring steadily. Adding it too fast overwhelms the yolk emulsifier, so the mixture breaks and separates instead of thickening.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (olive, pepper):

  1. Limefits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Avocadofits less well
  4. Cherryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, 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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