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Mayonnaise Dressing

A creamy dressing made from egg yolks, vinegar, sugar, mustard, cayenne pepper, butter, and whipped 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. Beat the yolks of 4 eggs well.

  2. Add 4 tablespoons of vinegar, 1 tablespoon of sugar, 1 teaspoon of mustard, and a pinch of cayenne pepper, then rub the mixture well together.

Cook and finish

  1. Cook over low heat, adding ½ cup of butter until creamy.

  2. Remove from heat and beat until cool.

  3. Just before serving, fold in 1 pint 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. 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. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify the butter and thicken the dressing into a creamy, smooth body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that gives the dressing a silky, creamy texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the richness of the fat.
Whipped cream
Lightens the dressing and adds airy volume and softness when folded in.

The step that matters

Cook over low heat, adding the butter. Egg yolks thicken at gentle heat but can scramble if overheated, turning the dressing grainy. Adding butter gradually lets the yolks emulsify it into a smooth, creamy mixture.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Potatofits about as well

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