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Mayonnaise Dressing

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

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

  1. Put the egg yolk into 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. 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. Olive + mustardtop 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 yolk
Its lecithin emulsifies the oil and water so the dressing stays thick instead of separating.
Salad oil
Forms the bulk of the dressing, suspended in droplets that give it a rich, creamy body.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and helps thin the dressing once it has thickened.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity and thins the dressing as it thickens.
Mustard
Its natural emulsifiers help hold the oil and water together, stabilizing the emulsion.

The step that matters

Adding the oil slowly, one drop at a time, while stirring constantly. Oil added too fast overwhelms the egg yolk, so the droplets cannot be coated and separate out. Adding it slowly lets the yolk's emulsifiers surround each droplet, producing a thick, stable emulsion instead of a broken, oily mixture.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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