Name: Our Own Sauce for Salad or Cold Meat
Ingredients: 2 very fresh eggs; ½ saltspoonful coarse sea salt; ⅓ saltspoonful cayenne pepper; slight grating of nutmeg; 3 tablespoons finest quality oil; 3 tablespoons good meat jelly; 2 tablespoons cucumber vinegar

Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Our Own Sauce for Salad or Cold Meat

Ingredients

2 very fresh eggs
½ saltspoonful coarse sea salt
⅓ saltspoonful cayenne pepper
slight grating of nutmeg
3 tablespoons finest quality oil
3 tablespoons good meat jelly
2 tablespoons cucumber vinegar

Directions

In a bowl, mix the yolks of the eggs with salt, cayenne, and nutmeg.
Gradually stir in the oil until the sauce is smooth like mayonnaise.
Add the meat jelly and cucumber vinegar, mixing well.
Consider adding a bit of chili vinegar for extra flavor.

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.

Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together13,015 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Cucumber + vinegartop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,734 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).
Nutmeg + cucumbertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together432 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Pepper + cucumbertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,991 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs: Yolks emulsify the oil into a smooth, thick sauce that holds together.
Oil: Forms the rich body of the sauce when stirred slowly into the yolks.
Meat jelly: Adds body and savory richness to the finished dressing.
Cucumber vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the oil.

The step that matters

Gradually stir in the oil. Adding oil too quickly before the yolks have absorbed it can break the emulsion, leaving the sauce oily and separated instead of smooth like mayonnaise. Slow addition lets the lecithin in the yolks surround the oil droplets and keep them suspended.

Swap the nutmeg

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

Tarragonfits better
Dillfits better
Parsleyfits better
Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, meat, cucumber, 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.

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Our Own Sauce for Salad or Cold Meat