Skip to main content
Dessert

Boiled Mayonnaise Dressing

A dressing made by boiling a mixture of egg yolks, olive oil, salt, mustard, sugar, cayenne pepper, lemon juice, egg whites, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Boiled Mayonnaise Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, beat the yolks of 4 eggs.

  2. Slowly stir in 4 tablespoons of olive oil, 1 teaspoon of salt, 1 teaspoon of mustard, 1 tablespoon of sugar, a dash of cayenne pepper, and the juice of 3 lemons.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the whites of 4 eggs until stiff and fold them into the mixture.

  4. Cook the mixture in a double boiler, stirring constantly, until thick.

Finish and serve

  1. Cool the dressing and just before serving, thin it with 1 cup of whipped cream.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify the oil and lemon juice and thicken the dressing when gently cooked.
Egg whites
Beaten until stiff, they add lightness and airy volume to the mixture.
Olive oil
Provides fat and richness, emulsified into the yolks for a smooth body.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness of the fat.
Whipped cream
Thins the cooked dressing and adds softness and a light, creamy texture.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture in a double boiler, stirring constantly. Gentle, constant stirring over indirect heat lets the yolks thicken smoothly. Too much heat or unstirred contact can scramble the eggs into lumps.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, olive, sugar, pepper, lemon, cream. 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.

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesLemon CustardLemon Custard64 recipes