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Mayonnaise Dressing with Butter

A mayonnaise dressing made with egg yolks, sweet milk, butter, flour, mustard, sugar, salt, cayenne pepper, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Mayonnaise Dressing with Butter

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat the yolks of 3 eggs until light.

  2. In a saucepan, mix 1 cup of sweet milk with 1 tablespoon of butter, 1 tablespoon of flour, ¼ teaspoon of mustard, 1 heaping tablespoon of sugar, 1 teaspoon of salt, and 1 pinch of cayenne pepper.

  3. Add 1 cup of vinegar and mix well.

  4. Cook the mixture in a double boiler 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify and thicken the sauce as they set with gentle heat.
Flour
Stabilizes the sauce by thickening it so it holds together.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
Sweet milk
Provides the liquid base that the flour and yolks thicken.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and balances the richness.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture in a double boiler until thick. Gentle, indirect heat lets the flour starch and egg yolk proteins thicken slowly. Direct high heat can scramble the yolks, leaving lumps and a grainy texture.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Mustardthe original
  4. Chivefits about as well

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