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Boiled Oil Mayonnaise

A mayonnaise made by boiling oil with eggs, vinegar, lemon juice, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Boiled Oil Mayonnaise

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a bowl, mix the dry ingredients: sugar, salt, cayenne pepper, and dry mustard.

  2. Add the well-beaten eggs and mix thoroughly.

  3. Place the mixture in a double boiler over boiling water.

Finish the mayonnaise

  1. Gradually add the olive oil, vinegar, and lemon juice, stirring constantly.

  2. When ready to serve, fold in the thick cream.

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. 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. Olive + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Pepper + mustardtop 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

Eggs
Thicken as they cook over heat, giving the mayonnaise its body and structure.
Olive oil
Provides the fat that, emulsified into the egg, makes the sauce rich and creamy.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavor and helps keep the sauce stable.
Thick cream
Adds richness and a soft, smooth texture when folded in at the end.

The step that matters

Gradually add the olive oil, vinegar, and lemon juice, stirring constantly. Adding the liquids slowly while stirring lets the oil disperse into the warm egg mixture as tiny droplets. Adding them too fast can make the sauce separate or curdle.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Avocadofits about as well
  3. Cherryfits about as well
  4. Limefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, olive, vinegar, sugar, pepper, mustard, 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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