Why it works: Lemon and pepper 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 ↓
Egg Salad with Mayonnaise
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the potatoes and eggs
Slice the cold boiled potatoes and hard-boiled eggs.
Dust with pepper and coarse sea salt, then add lemon juice and mix well.
Make the mayonnaise
In a clean cold bowl, beat the egg yolks.
Slowly add the salad oil drop by drop while stirring continuously with a wooden spoon.
Once thick, add a little lemon juice to thin it, then alternate adding oil and lemon juice until all oil is used.
Smooth the mustard with a little lemon juice and stir it in with pepper and salt to taste.
If the mayonnaise curdles, beat another egg yolk and gradually stir in the curdled mixture.
Assemble and serve
Combine part of the mayonnaise with the potatoes and eggs, and pour the rest over the salad.
Garnish with watercress.
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.
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Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Potato + mustardtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,340 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together15,430 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,305 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Lemon + mustardtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together3,816 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Egg yolks
- Emulsify the oil and lemon juice into a thick, stable mayonnaise.
- Salad oil
- Forms the bulk of the mayonnaise, giving it richness and body.
- Hard-boiled eggs
- Provide the main body and creamy texture of the salad.
- Cold boiled potatoes
- Add starchy bulk and soft texture that absorbs the dressing.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and helps thin and stabilise the emulsion.
The step that matters
Adding the oil to the yolks. Oil must be added slowly, drop by drop, while whisking so it disperses into the yolk. Adding it too fast breaks the emulsion and the mayonnaise curdles.
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, lemon, pepper, mustard):
- Horseradishfits better
- Spinachfits better
- Broccolifits better
- Potatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, lemon, pepper, mustard. 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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