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Mayonnaise Dressing

A creamy dressing made from egg yolks, olive oil, mustard, salt, sugar, vinegar, butter, chicken, and celery.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Olive and walnut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,087 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Mayonnaise Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Beat the egg yolks lightly in a bowl.

  2. Slowly add the olive oil drop by drop while beating steadily with a fork.

  3. Incorporate the mustard, salt, sugar, and red pepper into the yolks.

  4. Gradually mix in the vinegar until well combined.

  5. Pour the mixture into a saucepan with melted butter and simmer for 2-3 minutes, stirring constantly until thickened.

Combine and serve

  1. Mix the dressing with the chicken about 2 hours before serving.

  2. Add the celery just before serving to keep it crisp.

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. Olive + walnuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,087 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Olive + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Mustard + walnuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together849 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsifiers that bind the oil and vinegar into a thick, stable dressing.
Olive oil
Supplies the fat that gives the dressing its rich body and smooth texture.
Mustard
Helps hold the oil and egg emulsion together and adds sharp flavour.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the richness of the oil and yolks.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the mixture thicken when heated gently.

The step that matters

Adding the olive oil slowly. Oil added too fast cannot be absorbed by the yolks, so the emulsion breaks and the dressing separates instead of thickening.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Sesamefits about as well
  2. Beansfits about as well
  3. Almondfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

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