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Sauce

Sauce a LA Mayonnaise, Cold

A cold mayonnaise-based sauce made with egg yolks, oil, vinegar, salt, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,814 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Sauce a LA Mayonnaise, Cold

Ingredients

Directions

Make the emulsion

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks with salt.

  2. Slowly add the salad oil drop by drop while continually beating.

  3. Add the Cayenne pepper and continue beating.

  4. Alternately add the vinegar and remaining oil until smooth and creamy.

Finish

  1. If desired, color the sauce green with spinach juice.

  2. For a refreshing touch, prepare the sauce over a pan of crushed ice.

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. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  2. Egg + vinegartop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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
Their lecithin emulsifies the oil and vinegar so they stay blended as a smooth sauce.
Salad oil
Provides the fat that gives the sauce its rich body and creamy texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and balances the richness of the oil.

The step that matters

Adding the oil slowly while beating. The yolk can only suspend a limited amount of oil at a time. Adding oil too fast overwhelms the yolk's emulsifier, so the sauce separates and fails to thicken. Continuous beating disperses each addition before the next.

“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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