Skip to main content
Main

Cooked Mayonnaise Dressing

A cooked mayonnaise dressing made with egg yolks, a whole egg, vinegar, butter, and seasoning.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Egg and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Cooked Mayonnaise Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Heat the vinegar until scalding hot.

  2. Beat the egg yolks and whole egg until creamy.

Cook the dressing

  1. Pour the hot vinegar over the beaten eggs.

  2. Cook over boiling water, stirring constantly until thickened.

  3. Add the butter and season according to the salad being served.

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 + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Vinegar + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  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 yolks
Thicken as they cook and add richness and a smooth, creamy texture.
Whole egg
Adds body and thickens the dressing as its proteins set with gentle heat.
Vinegar
Adds acidity and sharp flavor that balances the richness of the eggs and butter.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer, rounder mouthfeel to the dressing.

The step that matters

Cook over boiling water, stirring constantly until thickened. Egg proteins set and thicken gently with steady stirring. If the eggs overheat or stop moving, they can scramble and curdle, leaving the dressing lumpy instead of smooth.

“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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes