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Mayonnaise Dressing

A cold dressing made from egg yolks, sugar, salt, mustard, olive oil, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and vinegar 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

  1. Beat the egg yolks until very light.

  2. Stir in the sugar, salt, and mustard.

  3. Slowly add the olive oil while stirring constantly.

  4. Keep the eggs and oil cold, using ice if necessary.

  5. If the dressing is too thin, reduce the amount of vinegar.

  6. Optionally, fold in stiffly beaten egg whites or a little cream.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Mustard + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  4. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Sugar + mustardtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify the oil into droplets, forming a thick, stable sauce.
Olive oil
Provides the fat that gives the dressing its body and richness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity for flavour and helps thin the dressing to the right consistency.
Mustard
Helps stabilise the emulsion and adds sharpness.

The step that matters

Slowly add the olive oil while stirring constantly. Egg yolk lecithin can only hold oil in tiny droplets if the oil is added gradually. Adding it too fast overwhelms the yolks, so the emulsion breaks and the dressing separates into a greasy liquid.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, olive, vinegar):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Cucumberfits about as well
  3. Mustardthe original
  4. Asparagusfits less well

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