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Mayonnaise Dressing

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

  1. Beat the egg yolks well.

  2. Add the vinegar, lemon juice, powdered sugar, salt, cayenne pepper, and mustard.

  3. Slowly add the olive oil, a few drops at a time, while continuing to beat the mixture.

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. Pepper + mustardtop 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
Emulsifiers that bind the oil and water-based liquids into a stable, thick dressing.
Olive oil
Supplies the fat that gives the dressing its rich body and smooth texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavor and helps keep the emulsion stable.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright flavor that balances the richness of the oil.
Mustard
Acts as a second emulsifier that helps hold the oil and liquids together.

The step that matters

Adding the olive oil slowly. Oil added too fast cannot be dispersed into the egg yolk mixture, so the emulsion breaks and the dressing turns oily and runny. Adding it a few drops at a time while beating lets tiny oil droplets form and get coated by the yolk proteins, which keeps the mixture thick and stable.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, 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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