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Salad

Salad Mayonnaise

A creamy dressing made with egg yolk, mustard, salt, Tabasco, olive oil, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Olive and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,922 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Salad Mayonnaise

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a large bowl, mix the egg yolk, mustard, salt, and Tabasco sauce with a wooden fork.

  2. Slowly pour in the olive oil in a fine stream, alternating with the lemon juice, adding a little of each at a time.

  3. Stir with long strokes, and if it's hot, place the bowl on a block of ice while stirring.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Mustard + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,816 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Mustard + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,120 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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 yolk
Emulsifies the oil and lemon juice, giving the mayonnaise its thick, creamy structure.
Olive oil
Forms the bulk of the emulsion, providing richness and body as droplets are dispersed.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and helps balance the richness of the oil.
Ground mustard
Acts as a secondary emulsifier that helps stabilise the mixture and adds sharpness.

The step that matters

Adding the oil slowly in a fine stream. Oil must be dispersed into tiny droplets among the egg yolk to form a stable emulsion. Pouring too fast, or adding too much at once, can overwhelm the yolk so the mayonnaise breaks and separates. Stirring steadily while adding helps keep it together.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, mustard, sauce, olive):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Limefits about as well
  4. Coconutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, mustard, sauce, 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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