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Salad

Mayonnaise for Salads

A dressing made from powdered egg yolks, oil, mustard, vinegar, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 for Salads

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, combine the powdered yolks with salt.

  2. Add the oil drop by drop while stirring continuously.

  3. Mix in mustard, pepper, and sugar.

  4. Whip the raw egg until frothy and beat it into the dressing.

  5. Gradually add the vinegar, using a total of ½ cup.

Finish

  1. Pour the dressing over the salad and mix well with two forks.

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. Mustard + peppertop 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. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Mustard + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Hard-boiled egg yolks
Their fat and emulsifying lecithin help hold the oil and vinegar together as a smooth dressing.
Raw egg
Adds extra emulsifying power and body, helping the dressing thicken and stay stable.
Oil
Supplies the fat that gives mayonnaise its rich, creamy texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the richness and sharpens the flavor.
Prepared mustard
Contributes emulsifying compounds that help stabilize the mixture and add sharpness.

The step that matters

Adding the oil drop by drop while stirring. Oil must be dispersed into tiny droplets among the egg yolk proteins before more oil is added. Adding it too fast overwhelms the yolk, so the emulsion breaks and the mayonnaise separates into a greasy, runny mixture.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, sugar, 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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