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Gravies and Sauces

A creamy egg-based sauce made with oil or butter, mustard, vinegar, and optional garnish of egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Gravies and Sauces

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggs

  1. Boil the eggs for 12 minutes, then place them in cold water until completely cool.

  2. Rub the yolks through a sieve into a bowl.

Make the mayonnaise

  1. Mix in the water or cream, then add the oil or melted butter and combine well.

  2. Gradually add the salt or sugar and mustard, mixing until smooth.

  3. Slowly incorporate the vinegar, ensuring everything is well combined.

Garnish and serve

  1. Chop the white of the egg and use it to garnish the top of the salad.

  2. Let the sauce sit at the bottom of the bowl and do not stir 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. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks emulsify the oil and vinegar, giving the sauce its body and smooth texture.
Oil or melted butter
Provides the fat that is dispersed into the yolks to create a rich, thick sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavour and helps stabilise the emulsion.
Made mustard
Acts as an additional emulsifier and adds a sharp, savoury note.

The step that matters

Adding the oil. Oil must be added slowly so it disperses into fine droplets within the yolk; adding it too fast breaks the emulsion and the sauce separates.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, cream, butter, sugar, vinegar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, butter, sugar, vinegar. 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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