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Mayonnaise Dressing

A creamy dressing made from mustard, sugar, salt, water, butter, eggs, vinegar, and cream or milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

  1. Dissolve the mustard, sugar, and salt in hot water.

  2. Slowly pour in the melted butter while stirring.

  3. Add the whole eggs or egg yolks and mix well.

  4. Stir in the vinegar and cream or milk.

  5. Place the mixture in a cup set in boiling water and cook until thick.

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. 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. Sugar + vinegartop 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

Eggs
Egg yolks emulsify the butter and thicken the mixture as they cook.
Melted butter
Supplies fat that, dispersed through the eggs, gives the mayonnaise its rich body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps stabilise the emulsion.
Mustard
Its natural emulsifiers help hold the oil and water-based parts together.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and softness, mellowing the texture of the sauce.

The step that matters

Cook until thick in the boiling water bath. Gentle heat from the water bath cooks the egg proteins just enough to thicken the sauce. Overheating can scramble the eggs and curdle the emulsion, while too little cooking leaves it thin.

Swap the mustard

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