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Mayonnaise Dressing

A cold mayonnaise dressing made with egg, mustard, sugar, oil, lemon juice, pepper, salt, and optional parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Mayonnaise Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Keep all ingredients cold.

  2. Beat a whole egg very thoroughly in a bowl.

  3. Add one-half teaspoon each of mustard, pepper, and salt, and one teaspoon sugar, and beat in the eggs.

Make the mayonnaise

  1. Add the oil in three pourings.

  2. Add oil and lemon juice alternately, whisking until thick as desired.

  3. Use one egg per cup of oil and one-half lemon.

Flavor option

  1. If desired, finely chop parsley, pound with a few drops of lemon juice, strain through cheesecloth, and add the juice to the mayonnaise; or use spinach leaves instead.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

381Calories
14 gProtein
29 gFat
19 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 9 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Olive Oil1 tbsp (14g)119
Cheese1 oz (28g) cheddar113
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Mustard1 tsp (5g) yellow3
Parsley1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)1
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

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. See the original page.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  4. Mustard + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  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
Emulsifies the oil and lemon juice, giving the mayonnaise its body and thickness.
Oil
Forms the bulk of the sauce, which thickens as it is whisked into the egg.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and helps keep the sauce stable.
Mustard
Its natural emulsifiers help hold the oil and egg together in a stable sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the oil. Oil must be added slowly, in small amounts, while whisking. Too much at once can prevent the egg from emulsifying, and the sauce will break and separate.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cheese, egg, lemon, pepper, parsley. 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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