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Mayonnaise Dressing

A cold egg yolk-based dressing thickened with oil, seasoned with salt, pepper, mustard, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Mayonnaise Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a cold bowl, rub the raw egg yolks and hard-boiled yolks until smooth.

  2. Gradually add the oil, a few drops at a time, mixing well.

  3. Once the mixture resembles jelly, add salt, pepper, and mustard.

  4. Slowly incorporate the vinegar.

Rescue and finish

  1. If the dressing appears to curdle, chill it for 40 minutes and mix again.

  2. For lobster salad, add mashed coral pressed through a sieve.

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. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

  4. Egg + mustardtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,210 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + vinegartop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and vinegar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,922 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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-based liquids, forming a thick, stable dressing.
Oil
Supplies the fat that, dispersed into droplets, gives the dressing its body and richness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and helps keep the emulsion stable.
Made mustard
Its natural emulsifiers help hold the oil and yolk mixture together.

The step that matters

Adding the oil. Oil must be added a few drops at a time so it disperses into tiny droplets that the yolk can coat. Adding it too fast overwhelms the yolk, and the emulsion breaks and curdles.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, pepper, vinegar):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Cucumberfits about as well
  4. Cabbagefits less well

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