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New Way to Make Mayonnaise

A homemade mayonnaise made with oil, egg, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and a touch of boiling water to prevent separation.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Mary Elizabeth Lyles Wilson (1860–1924) · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

New Way to Make Mayonnaise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Put one whole egg in a bowl.

Make the mayonnaise

  1. Beat the egg into one pint of Wesson or olive oil, adding lemon juice, salt, and pepper to taste.

  2. Add one tablespoon of boiling water for each cup of mayonnaise, beating in.

Chill

  1. When cool, place on ice.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

96Calories
7 gProtein
5 gFat
6 gCarbs

Counts 4 of 5 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0

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

By Mary Elizabeth Lyles Wilson (1860–1924). 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. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Wesson oil
Forms most of the mayonnaise, giving it its body and rich, smooth texture.
Egg
Its yolk emulsifies the oil, holding the oil and water droplets together so the mixture thickens.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the richness of the oil.

The step that matters

Beat the egg into the oil. The yolk can only hold the oil in a stable emulsion if the oil is added gradually while beating. Adding it too quickly overwhelms the yolk, so the mixture stays runny or separates.

“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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