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Mayonnaise Dressing

A creamy dressing made with eggs, oil, lemon juice, vinegar, mustard, salt, sugar, and paprika.

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

Prepare

  1. Chill the bowl, spoon, oil, and eggs thoroughly.

  2. Separate the eggs.

Make the mayonnaise

  1. Mix the sifted dry ingredients with the yolks.

  2. Add the oil slowly, a few drops at a time.

  3. When the mixture thickens, alternate adding oil, vinegar, and lemon juice.

  4. Ensure the mixture is thick enough to hold its shape.

  5. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the mixture.

  6. Optionally use thick cream instead of egg whites.

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. Lemon + olivetop 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. Vinegar + olivetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  5. Lemon + mustardtop 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

Olive oil
Forms the emulsion with the yolks, giving the dressing its body and richness.
Eggs
Yolks emulsify the oil into the dressing; whites are folded in for lightness.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens flavour and helps stabilise the emulsion.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the richness of the oil.

The step that matters

Adding the oil slowly. Oil must be added a few drops at a time at first so the yolk can emulsify it. Adding it too fast breaks the emulsion, and the mixture separates and fails to thicken.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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