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Salad

Salad Sauce Mayonnaise

A creamy dressing made from 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: Pepper and vinegar 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 ↓

Salad Sauce Mayonnaise

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks until well mixed.

  2. Add salt and Cayenne pepper, mixing thoroughly.

  3. Gradually add the oil while whisking until the mixture is creamy.

  4. Stir in the vinegar gradually until fully combined.

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. Pepper + vinegartop 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
Emulsify the oil and water, giving the sauce its thick, creamy structure.
Oil
Supplies the fat that, dispersed into droplets, gives the mayonnaise its body and richness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens flavour and helps stabilise the emulsion.

The step that matters

Gradually add the oil while whisking. Oil must be added slowly so it breaks into tiny droplets that the egg yolk lecithin can coat. Adding it too fast can cause the emulsion to break and the sauce to separate.

“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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