Skip to main content
Main

Mayonnaise

A custard-like mayonnaise made without oil, using butter, flour, milk, vinegar, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Mayonnaise

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Mayonnaise

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Beat the eggs in a bowl.

  2. Add salt, sugar, mustard, and vinegar to the eggs.

  3. In a saucepan, heat the butter and add the flour, stirring until smooth.

  4. Gradually add the milk to the butter and flour mixture, bringing it to a boil.

Thicken and store

  1. Slowly combine the hot mixture with the egg mixture, stirring continuously until it thickens like custard.

  2. Once cool, transfer to wide-mouthed bottles and store in a cool place.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Eggs
Beaten eggs provide structure as they thicken the mixture like a custard.
Butter
Melted butter adds richness and a smooth, fatty mouthfeel.
Flour
Flour cooked with butter forms a roux that thickens the sauce.
Milk
Milk adds moisture and creaminess to the thickened base.
Vinegar
Vinegar adds acidity that gives the sauce a tangy flavour.

The step that matters

Combining the hot mixture with the eggs. Adding hot liquid to eggs too quickly can scramble them. Pour slowly while stirring constantly so the eggs warm gradually and thicken smoothly into a custard-like texture.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Mustardthe original
  4. Chivefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, sugar, egg, pepper, milk, vinegar. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes