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Sauce

Mayonnaise Sauce

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

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

Why it works: Olive and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,297 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, fruity. The science ↓

Mayonnaise Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the emulsion

  1. Separate the yolks from the whites of the eggs and remove the germ.

  2. In a bowl, stir the yolks with a wooden spoon.

  3. Slowly add the olive oil drop by drop while stirring continuously in one direction.

Season and finish

  1. Add a little salt and pepper, then a few drops of vinegar or lemon juice.

  2. Ensure the sauce is thick enough for a spoon to stand upright in it.

  3. Make in a cool place and keep on ice during summer.

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

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  2. Olive + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Egg + olivetop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,340 recipes

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

  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
Their lecithin emulsifies the oil and water, holding the sauce together as a thick emulsion.
Olive oil
Forms the body of the sauce as droplets suspended in the yolk, giving richness and thickness.
Vinegar or lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and helps balance the richness of the oil.

The step that matters

Adding the oil slowly. Oil must be added drop by drop while whisking constantly. If it goes in too fast, the droplets cannot be dispersed by the yolk's emulsifier and the mayonnaise breaks into a separated, oily mixture.

“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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