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Mayonnaise Sauce

A creamy sauce made by emulsifying egg yolks, mustard, vinegar, oil, and cream.

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

Make the mayonnaise

  1. Combine egg yolks, mustard, salt, and pepper in a bowl.

  2. Stir quickly with a wooden spoon.

  3. Gradually add oil, starting with a few drops and then more quickly, while adding a few drops of vinegar at intervals.

  4. Continue stirring until mixture thickens to consistency of very thick cream.

  5. In hot weather, place the bowl in a vessel of crushed ice while making the mayonnaise.

Finish the sauce

  1. Stir in the cream.

  2. If sauce is too thick, add a little cold water.

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. Tarragon + vinegartop 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. Mustard + peppertop 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 yolks
Emulsify the oil and water, giving the sauce its thick, smooth body.
Salad oil
Provides the fat that, dispersed into droplets, thickens the sauce into mayonnaise.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens flavor and helps stabilize the emulsion.
French mustard
Acts as an extra emulsifier that helps hold the oil and yolk together.

The step that matters

Adding the oil gradually. Oil must be added slowly at first so droplets disperse fully in the yolk; adding it too fast can break the emulsion so the sauce turns oily and runny.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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