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Mayonnaise Dressing

A creamy dressing made from egg yolks, oil, vinegar, lemon juice, mustard, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Mayonnaise Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chill the plate, eggs, oil, and fork before starting.

Make the emulsion

  1. In a bowl, combine the egg yolks and salt, then beat with an egg beater.

  2. Slowly add the oil drop by drop while continuing to beat.

  3. Continue mixing until the dressing is thick and smooth.

Season

  1. Add the vinegar and lemon juice, then season with salt, red pepper, and mustard.

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. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,816 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Lecithin in the yolk emulsifies the oil and water, holding the dressing together and making it thick.
Oil
Provides the fat that, dispersed in droplets, gives the dressing its rich, thick body.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness of the oil.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps keep the emulsion balanced.
Mustard
Acts as a secondary emulsifier that helps the oil and yolk stay blended.

The step that matters

Adding the oil slowly, drop by drop. Oil must be dispersed into tiny droplets while beating. Adding it too fast overwhelms the yolk's emulsifier, and the mixture splits and fails to thicken.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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