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Boiled Oil Mayonnaise

A mayonnaise made by boiling oil, cream, and eggs with vinegar, lemon juice, mustard, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon 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

  1. Beat together the egg yolks, whole eggs, olive oil, cream, red pepper, vinegar, lemon juice, salt, and mustard until well combined.

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

  3. Cook, stirring constantly, until thickened.

  4. Remove from heat.

  5. If too thick, add a little cream to adjust consistency.

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. Pepper + lemontop 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

Egg yolks
Emulsify the oil and thicken the mixture as they cook, giving a rich, stable body.
Whole eggs
Add structure and help the mixture thicken when gently heated.
Olive oil
Supplies the fat that forms the creamy, smooth body of the sauce.
Cream
Adds moisture and softness, and can be added to loosen the texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness of the fat.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness of the fat.

The step that matters

Cook over boiling water while stirring constantly. The egg proteins thicken as they heat, but overheating can scramble them into lumps. Constant stirring spreads heat evenly so the sauce thickens smoothly.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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