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Mayonnaise Dressing

A cold egg yolk-based dressing emulsified with oil, vinegar or lemon juice, optionally seasoned with garlic.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and garlic are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,368 recipes. Both carry linalool, which smells floral, citrus. The science ↓

Mayonnaise Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the emulsion

  1. Place the egg yolk in a cold bowl and add the salt. Mix well.

  2. Add the oil drop by drop until an emulsion forms.

Finish the dressing

  1. Once thick, add vinegar or lemon juice, then continue adding oil until the desired quantity is reached.

  2. Season to taste and add garlic if desired.

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. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  2. Vinegar + garlictop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + vinegartop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Egg + clovetop 35% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,584 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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 yolk
Its lecithin emulsifies the oil and water, so the dressing thickens into a stable sauce.
Oil
Forms the bulk of the dressing, supplying richness and body as it is dispersed into droplets.
Vinegar or lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens flavour and helps keep the emulsion stable once thick.

The step that matters

Adding the oil drop by drop at the start. Oil added too quickly overwhelms the egg yolk, which cannot disperse it into fine droplets, so the emulsion breaks and the mayonnaise stays runny or separates. Slow addition lets the yolk coat each droplet first.

Swap the clove

The recipe marks clove as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, vinegar, garlic):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, vinegar, garlic. 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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