Why it works: Egg and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 33% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,922 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓
Quick Mayonnaise
Ingredients
Directions
Blend the yolk of one hard-cooked egg with the raw egg.
Add the oil and vinegar or lemon juice rapidly, mixing thoroughly to avoid curdling.
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.
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Egg + vinegartop 33% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Raw egg
- Its proteins and lecithin emulsify the oil and vinegar into a stable, thick sauce.
- Hard-cooked egg yolk
- Adds richness and helps bind the oil into a smooth, creamy texture.
- Oil
- Supplies the fat that, dispersed in tiny droplets, gives mayonnaise its body and richness.
- Vinegar or lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens flavour and helps stabilise the emulsion.
The step that matters
Adding the oil and vinegar. If oil is added too quickly, the droplets cannot be surrounded by egg proteins and lecithin, so the emulsion breaks and the mixture curdles or turns oily. Adding it rapidly while mixing thoroughly is what keeps it smooth.
“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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