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Mayonnaise Dressing

A cold dressing made from egg yolks, oil, 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. Combine yolks of 4 fresh raw eggs and 2 hard-boiled eggs in a cold bowl. Beat until smooth.

  2. Gradually add 4 tablespoons of oil a few drops at a time, mixing well until the mixture resembles jelly.

  3. Add 2 heaping teaspoons of salt, 1 teaspoon of pepper, and 1 teaspoon of mustard.

  4. Slowly mix in 2 tablespoons of vinegar.

  5. If the mixture curdles, chill in refrigerator for 40 minutes, then mix again.

Finish and store

  1. For lobster salad, add mashed lobster meat pressed through a sieve.

  2. Store dressing in a cold place until ready to serve; do not mix with salad until serving.

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
Emulsifiers that bind oil and vinegar into a stable, thick dressing.
Oil
Provides fat that, dispersed into the yolks, gives the dressing its rich body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens flavour and helps keep the emulsion stable.
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 the yolks as tiny droplets. Adding it too fast breaks the emulsion, causing the mixture to curdle or separate.

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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