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Salad

Mayonnaise Dressing

A creamy dressing made from egg yolk, oil, vinegar, lemon juice, salt, mustard, cayenne pepper, and sugar.

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 ↓

Mayonnaise Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Place the egg yolk in a cold bowl.

  2. Add the salt, mustard, cayenne, and sugar; mix until smooth.

  3. Slowly add the oil, one drop at a time, stirring constantly.

  4. As the mixture thickens, thin it with vinegar and lemon juice.

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. Vinegar + mustardtop 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. Olive + mustardtop 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 yolk
Emulsifies the oil and water-based liquids, holding the dressing together as a smooth sauce.
Salad oil
Forms the bulk of the emulsion, giving the dressing its rich body and mouthfeel.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens flavor and helps thin the thickened emulsion.
Vinegar
Adds acidity for sharpness and helps thin the thickened emulsion.
Sugar
Adds a small amount of sweetness that balances the acidity.

The step that matters

Adding the oil. Oil must be added very slowly while stirring constantly, because the egg yolk can only emulsify a limited amount at a time. Adding oil too fast breaks the emulsion, so the dressing separates instead of thickening.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Cucumberfits about as well
  4. Spinachfits about as well

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