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Mayonnaise Dressing

A creamy dressing made from egg yolk, olive oil, vinegar, salt, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Olive and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,297 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, fruity. The science ↓

Mayonnaise Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Place the egg yolk in a small bowl.

  2. Stir with a wooden spoon while adding the olive oil drop by drop. After using about 2 tablespoons of oil, you can add it by the teaspoonful.

  3. Once enough mayonnaise is made, mix in the vinegar, salt, and cayenne.

  4. If the mixture breaks, start over with a fresh egg yolk and oil.

  5. Keep the mayonnaise on ice until needed.

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. Olive + vinegartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  2. Olive + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  4. Egg + olivetop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Egg + vinegartop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and vinegar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,922 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolk
Lecithin in the yolk emulsifies the oil and water, holding the sauce together as a thick emulsion.
Olive oil
Forms the bulk of the emulsion, giving the mayonnaise its rich body and fat-based texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and helps balance the richness of the oil.

The step that matters

Adding the oil slowly at the start. Oil must be dispersed into the yolk in small amounts so droplets are coated and stay suspended. Adding it too fast overwhelms the yolk, and the emulsion breaks into a separated, oily mixture.

“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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