Name: Imperial Mayonnaise
Ingredients: ½ pint aspic or clear pale jellied stock; 2 tablespoons pure olive oil; 1 tablespoon sharp vinegar; ¼ teaspoon fine salt; ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper

Why it works: Olive and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,297 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, fruity. The science ↓

Imperial Mayonnaise

Ingredients

½ pint aspic or clear pale jellied stock
2 tablespoons pure olive oil
1 tablespoon sharp vinegar
¼ teaspoon fine salt
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper

Directions

Put the aspic or jellied stock into a bowl.
Add the olive oil, vinegar, salt, and cayenne pepper.
Break up the jelly with a whisk until small.
Stir the ingredients well together.
Whisk gently until the mixture is a smooth white sauce.

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.

Olive + vinegartop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,297 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).
Olive + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together30,263 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Aspic or jellied stock: Provides the gelled base that the oil is emulsified into, giving the sauce body.
Olive oil: Supplies the fat that forms the smooth, creamy body of the sauce.
Vinegar: Adds sharpness that balances the richness of the oil.

The step that matters

Whisking the jelly and oil together. Whisking gently while breaking up the jelly helps the oil disperse into fine droplets held in the gel. Whisking too hard or too fast can cause the mixture to split or stay lumpy.

“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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Imperial Mayonnaise