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Mayonnaise Dressing

A creamy dressing made from egg yolks, vinegar, butter, mustard, and oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Mayonnaise Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cooked base

  1. In a double boiler, combine the beaten yolks of 5 eggs and 5 tablespoons of vinegar. Cook until thick, stirring constantly.

  2. Remove from heat and add 2 tablespoons of butter. Stir until smooth and cool.

  3. Season with salt, pepper, mustard, and thin with sour cream to your desired consistency.

  4. For a cabbage salad, substitute sugar for mustard.

Make the emulsion

  1. In a bowl, mix 1 teaspoon of made mustard with ½ teaspoon of salt. Add 1 raw egg yolk.

  2. Slowly pour in oil or melted butter while beating vigorously until smooth.

  3. Finally, add 1 tablespoon of vinegar.

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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

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

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

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Cooked yolks thicken the dressing and the raw yolk helps emulsify the oil.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavor and helps set the cooked yolk base.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the dressing.
Oil
Forms the body of the emulsion when beaten slowly into the yolks.
Sour cream
Thins the dressing to the desired consistency and adds tang and creaminess.
Made mustard
Adds sharp flavor and helps stabilize the emulsion.

The step that matters

Adding the oil slowly while beating. Oil must be added a little at a time while beating vigorously so the yolk can emulsify it; adding it too fast can cause the dressing to separate and break.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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