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Mayonnaise Dressing

A homemade mayonnaise dressing made with vinegar, butter, egg yolks, sugar, salt, mustard, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

Make the base

  1. Heat vinegar and butter in a saucepan until boiling.

  2. In a bowl, beat together egg yolks and sugar, then season with salt and mustard.

  3. While the vinegar mixture is boiling, pour it over the egg mixture, stirring constantly.

Thicken and finish

  1. Return the mixture to the heat and boil until thick.

  2. Thin the dressing with sour or sweet cream as 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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  4. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

  5. Butter + eggtop 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 yolks
Their proteins set when heated, thickening the dressing and binding it into a smooth body.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a silky mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that gives the dressing its sharp, tangy flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Boiling the mixture until thick. Egg yolks thicken as their proteins set with heat, but if they get too hot or are not stirred, they can scramble and curdle. Stirring constantly during the pour and the cooking keeps the heat even and the texture smooth.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Mustardthe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Cucumberfits about as well

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