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Mayonnaise with Tomato Catsup

A mayonnaise flavored with tomato catsup, cayenne pepper, and optional dry mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Mayonnaise with Tomato Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chill the oil, egg yolk, and plate on ice.

  2. Ensure the yolk is free from any white.

Make the mayonnaise

  1. Mix the egg yolk with salt and cayenne pepper.

  2. If desired, add dry mustard with the salt at the beginning.

  3. Add the oil drop by drop, incorporating it slowly at first.

  4. Spend half the time incorporating the first 2 spoonfuls of oil.

  5. Once thick, alternate adding a few drops of vinegar with the oil.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Lemon + tomatotop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Lemon + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,816 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 yolk
Acts as the emulsifier that holds the oil and water in a stable, thick mixture.
Salad oil
Supplies the fat that gives the mayonnaise its body, richness and smooth texture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and helps keep the emulsion stable.

The step that matters

Add the oil drop by drop, incorporating it slowly at first. The egg yolk can only surround so many oil droplets at once. Adding oil too fast overwhelms it, so the emulsion breaks and the sauce turns thin and oily instead of thick.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, lemon, tomato. 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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