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Mayonnaise Dressing

A creamy dressing made from egg yolks, vinegar, lemon juice, mustard, salt, pepper, and olive oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the emulsion

  1. Beat the egg yolks with salt, pepper, and mustard until very light.

  2. Add ½ tablespoon vinegar and ½ tablespoon lemon juice, and beat thoroughly.

  3. Slowly add the olive oil while continuously beating with a whisk until the dressing thickens.

  4. Add the remaining vinegar and lemon juice, then more oil, beating thoroughly.

Chill

  1. Chill on ice until ready to serve.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Lemon + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. 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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Lecithin in the yolks emulsifies the oil and vinegar, holding the dressing together and thickening it.
Olive oil
Forms the fat phase of the emulsion, giving the dressing its body and rich texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the richness of the oil and sharpens the flavor.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright flavor, balancing the richness of the oil.
Mustard
Helps stabilize the emulsion and adds flavor.

The step that matters

Adding the olive oil slowly while whisking. Oil must be added in a thin, slow stream while beating so it disperses into tiny droplets. Adding it too fast overwhelms the yolks, and the emulsion breaks into a greasy, separated liquid instead of thickening.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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