Name: Mayonnaise
Ingredients: 2 raw egg yolks; 2 cups olive oil; 1 teaspoon prepared mustard; 1 teaspoon lemon juice; 2 boiled egg yolks; 2 teaspoons salt; ½ teaspoon pepper; 2 tablespoons vinegar; Sugar to taste

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 ↓

Mayonnaise

Ingredients

Directions

Place a mixing bowl in a larger bowl filled with cracked ice.
Add the raw and boiled egg yolks to the bowl.
Gradually add a little olive oil while rubbing to a cream.
Mix in the mustard, salt, pepper, and a pinch of sugar.
Slowly add the remaining oil, drop by drop, while beating until thick and shiny.
Thin the mixture with vinegar, adding it drop by drop until the desired consistency is reached.
Stir in the lemon juice and fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites just before serving.
Keep the dressing very cold.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Olive + lemontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,922 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Olive + mustardtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,950 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

Swap the mustard

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

Capsicumfits better
Mustardthe original
Cucumberfits about as well
Spinachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, olive, lemon, pepper, vinegar, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.