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Mayonnaise Dressing

A creamy dressing made with mustard, sugar, salt, cayenne pepper, egg yolks, olive oil, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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. In a bowl, mix the mustard, sugar, salt, and cayenne pepper.

  2. Add the egg yolks and beat well.

  3. Slowly add the olive oil while continuing to beat the mixture.

  4. If the dressing curdles, add another egg yolk and mix until smooth.

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. Mustard + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Olive + vinegartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  5. Pepper + olivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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 into the dressing and give it a thick, creamy body.
Olive oil
Provides the fat that, dispersed in droplets, creates the rich, thick texture.
Dry mustard
Contains natural emulsifiers that help stabilise the oil and yolk mixture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens flavour and balances the richness of the oil.

The step that matters

Adding the olive oil slowly while beating. Oil must be dispersed into tiny droplets in the yolk to form a stable emulsion. Adding it too fast overwhelms the yolk, so the dressing breaks and curdles.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Cucumberfits about as well
  4. Tomatofits less well

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