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89 Sauce

A vinaigrette made with egg yolks, vinegar, olive oil, mustard, and fines herbes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and mustard 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 ↓

89 Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the emulsion

  1. In a bowl, mix the egg yolks with salt and vinegar until well combined.

  2. While stirring continuously in the same direction, gradually add the olive oil and vinegar.

  3. Continue mixing until the sauce thickens and turns nearly white.

Season and chill

  1. Add mustard and finely chopped fines herbes to taste.

  2. Make the sauce in a cool place and chill it on ice for 1-2 hours.

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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Olive + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Vinegar + olivetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  4. Egg + mustardtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,210 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + olivetop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,340 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 yolks
Emulsifier that holds the oil and vinegar together as a smooth sauce.
Olive oil
Provides the fat that gives the vinaigrette its body and richness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the richness of the oil.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavour and helps keep the emulsion stable.

The step that matters

Add the olive oil gradually while stirring continuously. Oil must be dispersed into tiny droplets in the yolk mixture to form a stable emulsion. Adding it too fast or stopping the stirring lets the droplets merge, so the sauce can split and fail to thicken.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, vinegar, olive. 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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Sauce 33Dressing 9Egg 7Balsamic 6Mustard 5Asparagus 4 See all 12 →

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