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Sauce

Green Mayonnaise

A green mayonnaise sauce made with egg yolks, salad oil, tarragon vinegar, shallot vinegar or minced onion, meat gravy, lemon zest and juice, and spinach juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 602 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Green Mayonnaise

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mayonnaise

  1. In a shallow pan, strain and beat the egg yolks until light and thick.

  2. Gradually add the salad oil, stirring continuously until no oil is visible.

  3. Stir in the tarragon vinegar and shallot vinegar or minced onion.

  4. If using, mix in the clear meat gravy.

  5. Add the lemon zest and juice.

Add the spinach and serve

  1. Pound the spinach to extract 1 teaspoon of green juice, boil briefly to remove rawness, then mix with the mayonnaise.

  2. Once cold, pour over cold poultry cut into small pieces.

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. Tarragon + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together602 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Tarragon + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Shallot + spinachtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together198 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Tarragon + spinachtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together112 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Shallot + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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 and thicken the sauce into a stable, creamy base.
Salad oil
Provides the fat that, emulsified with the yolks, gives the sauce its body and richness.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity and sharp aromatic flavour that balances the rich oil.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright flavour to cut the richness of the mayonnaise.
Spinach juice
Provides the green colour and a mild vegetal flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the salad oil. Oil must be added gradually while beating, so the yolks can emulsify it. Adding it too fast breaks the emulsion, leaving oil separated and the sauce thin and greasy.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, tarragon, vinegar, shallot, meat, spinach):

  1. Avocadofits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Limefits less well
  4. Cherryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, tarragon, vinegar, shallot, meat, spinach. 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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