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Mayonnaise Dressing

A creamy dressing made with mustard, egg yolk, olive oil, salt, cayenne pepper, vinegar or lemon juice, and sweet cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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. Combine mustard, salt, cayenne, and egg yolk in a bowl.

  2. Gradually add olive oil while stirring steadily in one direction until a thick paste forms.

  3. To thin the mayonnaise, add vinegar or lemon juice and sweet cream until it reaches a very thick cream consistency.

  4. If the mixture becomes too thin, add another egg yolk to restore thickness.

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. Mustard + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Olive + vinegartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  5. Pepper + olivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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 ingredients, holding the sauce together and giving it body.
Olive oil
Forms the fat phase of the emulsion, giving the dressing its richness and thick texture.
Mixed mustard
Helps stabilise the emulsion so the oil stays dispersed instead of separating.
Vinegar or lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and thins the sauce to the desired consistency.

The step that matters

Adding the olive oil gradually while stirring steadily in one direction. Oil must be dispersed into the egg yolk in small amounts so droplets are surrounded by emulsifier. Adding it too fast overwhelms the yolk, and the mixture breaks into separated oil and liquid.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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