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Sauce

Mayonnaise Sauce

A cold sauce made from egg yolks, mustard, tarragon vinegar, chili vinegar, white vinegar, oil, and cayenne pepper.

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

Why it works: Mustard and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 901 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Mayonnaise Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the emulsion

  1. In a small round-bottomed bowl, combine the egg yolks, salt, cayenne pepper, and mustard, and mix well with a wooden spoon or whisk.

  2. Add half the oil drop by drop while stirring briskly.

Finish and rest

  1. Gradually stir in the tarragon and chili vinegar.

  2. Add the remaining oil drop by drop, then stir in the white vinegar.

  3. Let the sauce stand for 30 minutes before using.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Mustard + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together901 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Tarragon + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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

Eggs
Egg yolks bind the oil and vinegar into a stable, creamy emulsion.
Salad oil
Supplies the fat that forms the body and richness of the sauce.
Mustard
Its natural emulsifiers help hold the oil and vinegar together.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity and the distinctive aromatic flavour of tarragon.
White vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that brightens and balances the richness of the oil.
Chili vinegar
Adds acidity and a warm, pungent flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the oil drop by drop. Egg yolks can only disperse so much oil at once. Adding it slowly while stirring lets each droplet be coated and suspended. Adding too fast overwhelms the yolks, and the sauce breaks and separates.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Mustardthe original
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Cucumberfits less well

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