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Mayonnaise Dressing

A creamy dressing made with hard‑boiled and raw eggs, oil, vinegar, mustard, lemon juice, salt, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Kaufman, Nettie M · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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

Prepare the yolks

  1. Separate the yolks from the 2 hard‑boiled eggs and place them in a bowl. Add a pinch of cayenne pepper.

  2. Separate the yolks from the 2 raw eggs and add 1 teaspoon of oil.

  3. Add 1 cup of butter and 1–3 cups of vinegar to the bowl with the hard‑boiled yolks.

  4. Add 1 teaspoon of mustard, the juice of one lemon, and 1 teaspoon of salt.

  5. Sieve the hard‑boiled yolks and stir in the salt, mustard, and cayenne pepper.

  6. Cream the butter, then fold in the raw‑egg yolks and the hard‑boiled mixture.

Finish the dressing

  1. In three separate cups, combine oil, vinegar, and lemon juice. Add 1 teaspoon of oil, then 1 teaspoon of lemon juice, and vinegar until all liquid is used.

  2. Beat with a Dover egg beater until smooth. Stir in the liquid from the three cups, tasting as you go to avoid excess sourness.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

227Calories
7 gProtein
20 gFat
7 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Olive Oil1 tbsp (14g)119
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Cayenne1 tsp (1.8g)6
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
Mustard1 tsp (5g) yellow3
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.

By Kaufman, Nettie M. 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 + 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. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Mustard + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,816 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify the oil and butter, giving the dressing a thick, smooth body.
Butter (in the method)
Adds richness and fat that helps create a creamy texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavor and balances the richness.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright flavor to the dressing.
Mustard
Its compounds help stabilize the emulsion and add sharp flavor.

The step that matters

Adding the liquid from the three cups. Oil and acid must be added slowly and beaten in so they emulsify; adding too much vinegar or lemon juice at once can split the dressing and make it sour.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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