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Mayonnaise Dressing

A simple mayonnaise dressing made with egg yolk, oil, vinegar or lemon juice, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 33% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,922 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Mayonnaise Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the emulsion

  1. Separate the egg whites and yolks.

  2. Beat the yolks in a bowl.

  3. Slowly add the oil while whisking continuously until thick.

Finish

  1. Stir in the vinegar or lemon juice.

  2. Season with salt to taste.

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. 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 into the beaten yolk, giving the dressing its thick, creamy structure.
Oil
Makes up most of the volume and provides the rich, smooth body of the dressing.
Vinegar or lemon juice
Adds acidity for a bright, sharp flavour that balances the richness of the oil.

The step that matters

Slowly add the oil while whisking continuously. The yolk can only hold oil as tiny droplets if the oil goes in gradually. Adding it too fast overwhelms the emulsifier, and the mixture can split into a greasy, runny layer instead of thickening.

“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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