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Mayonnaise

A sauce made from egg yolk, salt, pepper, vinegar, Lucca oil, white vinegar, tarragon vinegar, stock, sugar, mustard, cream, and parsley or tarragon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Mayonnaise

Why it works: Tarragon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,563 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mayonnaise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the yolk

  1. In a bowl, break the egg yolk and stir it with a wooden spoon.

  2. Add salt, pepper, and vinegar.

Whisk in the oil

  1. Slowly add the Lucca oil drop by drop while stirring continuously until thick.

  2. Mix in the white vinegar and tarragon vinegar.

Make the panada and finish

  1. In a separate pan, melt the butter and stir in the flour to make a panada.

  2. Gradually add the milk and stir until boiling.

  3. Mix in the stock, vinegar, sugar, mustard, and cream until smooth.

Serve

  1. Serve the mayonnaise over the fish, garnished with parsley or tarragon.

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. Tarragon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Tarragon + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together901 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + tarragontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Vinegar + tarragontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolk
Emulsifier that holds the oil and vinegar together in a stable, thick sauce.
Lucca oil
Supplies the fat that gives the sauce its body and rich texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavour and helps stabilise the emulsion.
Cream
Adds richness and softens the texture of the finished sauce.
Stock
Adds savoury depth and thins the sauce slightly.

The step that matters

Adding the oil drop by drop. Oil must be added slowly while stirring so each droplet is broken into the yolk and emulsified. Adding it too fast overwhelms the yolk, and the mayonnaise separates and stays runny instead of thickening.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Dillfits about as well
  3. Celeryfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, vinegar, tarragon, sugar, mustard, 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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