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Dessert

Mayonnaise Dressing

A creamy dressing made with mustard, egg yolks, olive oil, vinegar, lemon juice, salt, and cayenne pepper.

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

  1. In a bowl, mix the mustard, salt, and cayenne pepper.

  2. Add the egg yolks and mix well.

  3. Gradually add the olive oil, starting drop by drop while stirring constantly.

  4. As the mixture thickens, thin it with the vinegar and lemon juice.

  5. Continue to add the oil and vinegar or lemon juice alternately until all is used, stirring constantly.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Mustard + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Mustard + peppertop 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
Emulsifiers that hold the oil and water-based liquids together, giving the dressing its thick body.
Olive oil
Provides the fat that, dispersed in droplets, makes the dressing rich and creamy.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens flavour and helps thin the emulsion as it thickens.
Vinegar
Adds acidity and sharpness, and thins the emulsion as it thickens.
Mustard
Its natural emulsifiers help stabilise the emulsion and add sharp flavour.

The step that matters

Adding the oil gradually while stirring constantly. Oil must be dispersed into the yolk mixture in tiny droplets. Adding it too fast overwhelms the yolks, so the emulsion breaks and the dressing separates instead of thickening.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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