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Mayonnaise Dressing

A creamy dressing made with mustard, egg yolks, salt, olive oil, paprika or vinegar, cayenne, lemon juice, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Mayonnaise Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the emulsion

  1. Mix the mustard, egg yolks, and salt together in a bowl.

  2. Add the olive oil drop by drop until the mixture begins to thicken.

Thin and finish

  1. Once thickened, add lemon juice or vinegar to thin it out.

  2. Continue alternating adding oil, vinegar, and lemon juice until fully incorporated.

  3. Just before serving, fold in the whipped cream.

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

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

  3. Mustard + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Olive + vinegartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  5. Mustard + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,816 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Their lecithin emulsifies the oil and water so the dressing thickens instead of separating.
Olive oil
Forms the fat phase that gives the dressing its rich body and smooth texture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and thins the emulsion as it is added.
Whipped cream
Adds air and extra fat, making the finished dressing lighter and softer.

The step that matters

Adding the oil drop by drop at the start. Oil added too quickly overwhelms the egg yolks, which cannot emulsify it, so the mixture breaks and separates. Slow addition lets the yolk lecithin coat the oil droplets and build a stable, thick emulsion.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Cherryfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Coconutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, egg, olive, vinegar, cream. 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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