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Mayonnaise Dressing

A creamy dressing made from egg yolk, oil, vinegar or lemon juice, salt, paprika, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and mustard 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

Make the mayonnaise

  1. Beat the egg yolk in a bowl.

  2. Slowly pour in the salad oil in a thin stream while beating constantly.

  3. Thin the mixture to your desired consistency with vinegar or lemon juice.

  4. Season with salt, paprika, and mustard.

Chill and store

  1. Chill the egg and oil before using, and keep the mixture on ice until needed.

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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + mustardtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,210 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Egg + vinegartop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and vinegar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,922 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 yolk
Its lecithin emulsifies the oil and water so the dressing thickens and holds together.
Salad oil
Supplies the fat that, dispersed in droplets, gives the dressing its rich body and texture.
Vinegar or lemon juice
Adds acidity for bright flavour and adjusts the thickness of the finished dressing.
Mustard
Contains natural emulsifiers that help stabilise the emulsion and add sharpness.

The step that matters

Pour the oil in a thin stream while beating constantly. Adding oil too fast overwhelms the egg yolk's emulsifier, so the droplets merge and the mixture breaks into a greasy, separated liquid instead of thickening into mayonnaise.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, 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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