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Mayonnaise Dressing

A homemade mayonnaise dressing made with egg yolk, oil, mustard, vinegar, salt, and pepper.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Emulsify

  1. Place the yolk of egg and seasonings in a bowl.

  2. Add the salad oil drop by drop while stirring continuously.

Thin and finish

  1. Once thick and smooth, gradually thin with the vinegar until the consistency is like thick cream.

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. 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. Mustard + vinegartop 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

Egg yolk
Its lecithin acts as an emulsifier, holding the oil and water-based parts together.
Salad oil
Forms the fat phase that gives the dressing its richness and thick body.
Mustard
Helps stabilise the emulsion and adds a sharp, savoury flavour.
Malt vinegar
Adds acidity and sharpness and thins the emulsion to a pourable consistency.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity and a distinct herbal aroma while thinning the dressing.

The step that matters

Adding the salad oil drop by drop while stirring continuously. The oil must be dispersed into very fine droplets held by the egg yolk's emulsifier. Adding it too quickly overwhelms the yolk, so the oil separates and the mayonnaise breaks instead of becoming thick and smooth.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, malt, 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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