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Cream Mayonnaise Dressing

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

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

Cream Mayonnaise Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mayonnaise

  1. Mix mustard, salt, and cayenne pepper in a bowl.

  2. Add egg yolks and stir until thoroughly combined.

  3. Slowly add olive oil, starting with a few drops while stirring with a wooden spoon or wire whisk.

  4. As the mixture thickens, dilute it with vinegar and add the oil more rapidly.

  5. When nearly finished, stir in the lemon juice.

Chill and finish

  1. Chill in a cold place.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Mustard + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 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 hold the oil and vinegar together as a smooth, thick dressing.
Olive oil
Supplies the fat that forms the body and rich texture of the dressing.
Vinegar
Thins the thickening emulsion and adds sharp acidity to balance the fat.
Mustard
Helps stabilise the emulsion and adds sharpness to the dressing.
Cream
Adds softness and a lighter, airy texture when folded in at the end.

The step that matters

Adding the oil slowly at the start. Oil added too fast before the yolks have emulsified can break the mixture into separate oil and liquid. Starting with drops while whisking lets the yolk lecithin coat the droplets so the emulsion forms and thickens.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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