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Mayonnaise Dressing

A cold, emulsified dressing made from egg yolks, oil, vinegar, lemon juice, salt, and cayenne pepper.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pack a bowl in a larger bowl filled with cracked ice.

  2. In a smaller bowl, sift together salt and cayenne.

  3. Add egg yolks and stir until well mixed.

  4. Add 1½ teaspoons lemon juice.

Make the mayonnaise

  1. Slowly add the first ¼ cup of oil, drop by drop, stirring constantly.

  2. As the mixture thickens, alternate adding 1 teaspoon of vinegar or lemon juice with the oil.

  3. Once the first ¼ cup of oil is incorporated, the mixture should be the consistency of boiled custard.

  4. Continue adding oil in larger quantities, beating constantly, alternating with vinegar and lemon juice until all are used.

  5. If the dressing curdles, add another yolk to a chilled bowl and slowly beat in the curdled mixture.

  6. Keep all ingredients thoroughly chilled and use a small wooden spoon for the first ¼ cup of oil; finish with a Dover egg beater.

  7. The mayonnaise should be stiff enough to hold its shape and should be kept cold.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

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

  3. Vinegar + olivetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  4. Pepper + olivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsifiers that bind the oil and lemon juice into a stable, thick dressing.
Olive oil
Forms the bulk of the dressing, providing richness and body as it is emulsified.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens flavour and helps the emulsion thicken.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens flavour and helps the emulsion thicken.

The step that matters

Adding the first oil slowly. Oil must be dispersed into the yolks in tiny droplets while stirring constantly. Adding it too fast overwhelms the yolk lecithin, so the emulsion breaks and the mayonnaise curdles.

“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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