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Mayonnaise Sauce

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Mayonnaise Sauce

Why it works: Tarragon and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 901 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Mayonnaise Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mayonnaise

  1. In a bowl, combine the egg yolks and add the salad oil gradually, stirring continuously in one direction.

  2. Once all the oil is incorporated, the sauce should be thick.

  3. Stir in the vinegar, pepper, salt, and mustard or cayenne if desired.

Finish and store

  1. If using cream, add it just before serving.

  2. The sauce without cream can be stored for several days.

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. Tarragon + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together901 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Tarragon + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Vinegar + tarragontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Their lecithin emulsifies the oil into the water in the yolks, forming a thick sauce.
Salad oil
Provides the fat that, dispersed into droplets, gives the sauce its body and richness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and helps keep the emulsion stable.

The step that matters

Adding the oil gradually. Oil must be added slowly while stirring so it disperses into tiny droplets that the egg yolk can emulsify. Adding it too fast can break the sauce into a runny, separated mix.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, vinegar, tarragon, 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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