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Mayonnaise Sauce

A homemade mayonnaise sauce made with eggs, oil, vinegar, mustard, salt, pepper, and tarragon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Mayonnaise Sauce

Why it works: Mustard and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 901 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Mayonnaise Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the yolks

  1. Separate the yolks and whites of the eggs, placing the yolks in a bowl.

  2. Stir the yolks gently to break them.

  3. Add salt and pepper to the yolks.

Emulsify and finish

  1. Pour the salad oil in slowly, drop by drop, while whisking continuously until combined.

  2. Stir in the tarragon vinegar, common vinegar, and mustard to taste.

  3. The sauce is now ready to use.

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. Mustard + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together901 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Pepper + tarragontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Vinegar + tarragontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg yolks contain emulsifiers that hold the oil and vinegar together as a smooth sauce.
Salad oil
Oil forms the bulk of the sauce, giving it richness and a thick, creamy texture.
Mustard
Mustard helps stabilise the emulsion and adds a sharp, savoury flavour.
Tarragon vinegar
Vinegar adds acidity that brightens the rich oil and gives a sharp, herbal aroma.

The step that matters

Pouring the oil slowly while whisking. The oil must be broken into tiny droplets that the yolk can coat. Adding it too fast overwhelms the yolk, so the mixture cannot absorb it and the sauce splits and turns oily.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, vinegar, tarragon. 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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