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Mayonnaise Sauce

A simple mayonnaise sauce made with egg yolks, oil, vinegar, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Mayonnaise Sauce

Why it works: Tarragon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,399 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mayonnaise Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

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

  2. Stir quickly with a wooden spoon, always in the same direction.

  3. Gradually add the salad oil while continuing to stir.

  4. Finally, drop in the tarragon vinegar and mix well.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Egg + tarragontop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,789 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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
Emulsifiers that hold the oil and water-based parts together, giving mayonnaise its thick, smooth body.
Salad oil
Forms the bulk of the emulsion, providing richness and a creamy texture when dispersed into the yolks.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity and bright flavor that balances the richness of the oil and yolks.

The step that matters

Gradually add the salad oil while stirring. Adding oil too fast overwhelms the yolks' ability to emulsify, so the mixture can break and separate into oily liquid. Adding it slowly in a thin stream while stirring lets tiny oil droplets get coated and suspended evenly, producing a stable, thick emulsion.

Swap the tarragon

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

  1. Tarragonthe original
  2. Dillfits about as well
  3. Parsleyfits less well
  4. Allspicefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, 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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