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Dessert

Mayonnaise Dressing

A sweet and spicy mayonnaise-based dressing made with mustard, sugar, cayenne pepper, salt, egg yolks, lemon juice, vinegar, olive oil, and whipped cream.

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

Mayonnaise Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks and dry ingredients until light and thick.

  2. Place the bowl in a pan of ice water while beating.

  3. Add the olive oil gradually, a little at a time.

  4. When the mixture thickens, add a little vinegar.

  5. Continue adding oil and vinegar until fully incorporated and thick.

  6. Stir in the lemon juice and whipped cream.

  7. Chill until ready to use.

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. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Lemon + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

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

  4. Mustard + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsifiers that hold the oil and vinegar together as a thick, stable dressing.
Olive oil
Supplies the fat that gives the dressing its rich body and smooth texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and helps thicken the emulsion.
Whipped cream
Adds air and fat that lighten the dressing and soften its texture.

The step that matters

Add the olive oil gradually, a little at a time. Oil must be dispersed into the egg yolk slowly so tiny droplets form and stay suspended. Adding it too fast overwhelms the yolk, and the emulsion breaks into a greasy, separated mixture.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Avocadofits about as well
  3. Cherryfits about as well
  4. Limefits less well

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

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