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Sauce

Mayonnaise Sauce

A sauce made from egg yolk, salt, pepper, olive oil, vinegar, lemon juice, and optional tarragon vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Mayonnaise Sauce

Why it works: Lemon and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,137 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Mayonnaise Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the emulsion

  1. Break the yolk of a fresh egg into a bowl and add salt and pepper.

  2. Beat the mixture until thick.

  3. Gradually add olive oil, two or three drops at a time, until about ½ cup has been used and the mixture is thick and yellow.

  4. Once 8 teaspoons of oil have been added, stir in 1 teaspoon of white vinegar.

  5. Continue adding oil and vinegar in these proportions until all the oil is used.

Finish the sauce

  1. For a creamier texture, add a few drops of lemon juice and tarragon vinegar for flavor.

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. Lemon + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + tarragontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Olive + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolk
Lecithin in the yolk emulsifies the oil and water, holding the sauce together and thick.
Olive oil
Supplies the fat that, dispersed in droplets, gives the sauce its thick, rich body.
White vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens flavor and helps stabilize the emulsion.

The step that matters

Adding the oil gradually. Oil must be added a few drops at a time while beating, so each droplet is coated by yolk before more is added. Adding it too fast breaks the emulsion, leaving the sauce thin and oily.

Swap the tarragon

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

  1. Parsleyfits about as well
  2. Tarragonthe original
  3. Dillfits about as well
  4. Thymefits less well

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