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Mayonnaise Dressing

A cold egg yolk-based dressing thickened with oil, vinegar, mustard, and seasonings.

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

Make the emulsion

  1. Place the uncooked yolk of an egg into a cold bowl and beat it well with a fork.

  2. Add the salt and mustard, and mix well for one minute.

  3. Slowly pour in the oil, alternating with a few drops of vinegar.

  4. When the sauce thickens to a jelly-like consistency, alternate a few drops of lemon juice with the oil.

  5. Once the egg has absorbed 1 cup of oil, add a pinch of cayenne pepper and 2 teaspoons of vinegar.

Rescue and finish

  1. For best results, chill the oil and egg before using.

  2. If the mixture curdles, beat in another yolk slowly.

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. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Mustard + lemontop 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 yolk
Its lecithin emulsifies the oil and water into a thick, stable sauce.
Oil
Provides the fat that gives the dressing its richness and body.
Ground mustard
Helps stabilise the emulsion so the sauce holds together.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavour and balances the richness of the oil.

The step that matters

Adding the oil slowly at the start. The yolk can only hold tiny oil droplets suspended when oil is added gradually. Pouring too fast overwhelms the egg, so the emulsion breaks and the sauce curdles or stays runny.

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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