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Mayonnaise Dressing

A simple mayonnaise dressing made with egg yolks, oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and mustard 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

Prepare

  1. Wash a small deep bowl in cold water and dry thoroughly.

  2. Place the egg yolks and oil in a cold place until needed.

  3. Cut an onion and rub it around the inside of the bowl (optional).

Make the mayonnaise

  1. Add salt, pepper, and mustard to the bowl.

  2. Beat the egg yolks with an egg beater.

  3. Slowly add the oil, starting drop by drop using a dropper.

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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  3. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Egg + mustardtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,210 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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 yolks
Emulsifying agent that holds the oil and vinegar together as a thick, stable sauce.
Oil
Provides fat and body, forming the rich bulk of the dressing as it emulsifies.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps balance the richness of the oil.

The step that matters

Adding the oil slowly. Oil must be dispersed into the yolks in tiny droplets before more is added. Adding it too fast overwhelms the yolk's emulsifier, so the mixture breaks and separates instead of thickening.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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