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Sauce

French Mayonnaise Sauce

A French mayonnaise sauce made with boiled eggs, raw yolks, olive 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 ↓

French Mayonnaise Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the yolks

  1. Boil the eggs for 20 minutes, then cool and remove the yolks.

  2. Pulverize the yolks and add the two raw yolks, stirring until smooth.

Make the mayonnaise

  1. Slowly pour in the olive oil, drop by drop, while stirring continuously in the same direction.

Season and finish

  1. In a separate bowl, dissolve the mustard in a little cold water.

  2. Add the salt, black pepper, red pepper, and vinegar to the mustard mixture.

  3. Slowly pour the mixture into the mayonnaise, stirring and adjusting seasoning to taste.

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. Olive + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Olive + vinegartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  5. Olive + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Raw egg yolks
Emulsify the oil and water so the sauce thickens and holds together.
Hard boiled eggs
Add body and a creamy texture to the pulverized base.
Olive oil
Provides fat that, emulsified, gives the sauce its rich body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the richness of the oil.
English mustard
Helps stabilise the emulsion and adds sharp flavour.

The step that matters

Adding the oil. Oil must be added slowly while stirring steadily in one direction so droplets disperse finely into the yolk. Adding it too fast breaks the emulsion, leaving the sauce thin and oily.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, olive, 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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