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Mayonnaise Dressing

A custard-like dressing made from egg yolks, oil, vinegar, milk, sugar, salt, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Mayonnaise Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing base

  1. In a bowl, mix the salad oil, sugar, salt, and mustard until well combined.

  2. Add the well-beaten egg yolks and mix thoroughly.

  3. Stir in the vinegar and then the milk or cream.

Cook and store

  1. Place the bowl in a saucepan with boiling water, ensuring the water reaches halfway up the bowl.

  2. Stir the mixture over heat until it thickens to a custard-like consistency.

  3. Store in a tightly sealed bottle for several days.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + mustardtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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
Emulsify with the oil and thicken the dressing as they gently cook into a custard.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the richness of the dressing.
Milk or single cream
Adds moisture and richness, giving the dressing a smoother, softer body.
Salad oil
Provides fat that gives the dressing body and a silky mouthfeel.
Mustard
Aids emulsification and adds a sharp, savoury flavour.

The step that matters

Stir the mixture over heat until it thickens. Egg yolks thicken when gently heated, but if the heat is too high or the mixture is left unstirred, the yolks can scramble and curdle. Keep the bowl over simmering water and stir constantly until it coats a spoon.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Cucumberfits about as well
  4. Sweet potatofits about as well

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