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Sauce

Mayonnaise Sauce

A creamy sauce made from egg yolks, salt, pepper, olive oil, vinegar, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Mayonnaise Sauce

Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Mayonnaise Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a large bowl, combine the egg yolks, salt, and black pepper.

  2. Mix gently with a wooden spoon in one direction.

  3. Gradually add the olive oil while continuing to mix.

  4. Add the French vinegar and mix until the sauce thickens.

  5. Thin the sauce with a little lemon juice and mix until smooth and creamy.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Olive + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Olive + vinegartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  4. Pepper + olivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 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

Egg yolks
Act as the emulsifier, holding the oil and water-based liquids together in a smooth sauce.
Olive oil
Supplies the fat that, dispersed into the yolks, forms the body and richness of the sauce.
French vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps the sauce thicken as it is mixed.
Lemon juice
Adds bright acidity and thins the sauce to a smooth, creamy consistency.

The step that matters

Adding the olive oil gradually while mixing. Oil added too fast cannot be absorbed by the egg yolk emulsifier, so the sauce breaks and separates into oily layers. Adding it slowly in a thin stream lets each droplet be surrounded and suspended before more is added.

“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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