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Mayonnaise Dressing

A creamy dressing made from egg, sugar, mustard, salt, vinegar, and butter, cooked slowly in a double boiler.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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. Beat the egg well with the sugar, mustard, and salt.

  2. Slowly stir in the vinegar.

  3. Add the butter drop by drop.

Cook

  1. Cook in a double boiler, stirring constantly.

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 + walnuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together849 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Butter + walnuttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg
Egg proteins thicken as they gently heat and help hold the oil and vinegar together.
Mustard
Mustard helps keep the butter and vinegar blended into a smooth, stable mixture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and balances the richness of the butter.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, creamy texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Cook in a double boiler, stirring constantly. The egg thickens the dressing only over gentle, even heat. If it gets too hot or sits still, the egg can scramble and the dressing can turn grainy or curdled.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits about as well
  2. Sesamefits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, mustard, sugar, vinegar, butter. 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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