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Mayonnaise Sauce

A creamy sauce made from egg yolks, vinegar, oil, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Mayonnaise Sauce

Why it works: Olive and spinach match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,971 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Mayonnaise Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat together the egg yolks, vinegar, salt, and pepper in a bowl.

  2. Gradually add the olive oil while continuing to beat until a smooth cream forms.

  3. Stir in the spinach juice for a green color.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + spinachtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Pepper + spinachtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Vinegar + olivetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  4. Pepper + olivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

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

  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
Act as the emulsifier, holding the oil and vinegar together in a smooth, thick cream.
Olive oil
Supplies the fat that gives mayonnaise its rich body and mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity for flavor and helps keep the emulsion stable.

The step that matters

Adding the olive oil gradually. Egg yolk lecithin can only surround so many oil droplets at once. Adding oil slowly lets each droplet be coated and dispersed, forming a stable emulsion. Pouring it in too fast can make the mixture break and separate into oily liquid.

Swap the spinach

The recipe marks spinach as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, vinegar, pepper, olive):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Cucumberfits about as well
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Spinachthe original

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