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Mayonnaise Sauce

A simple mayonnaise sauce made with egg yolk, salad oil, tarragon vinegar, parsley, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Mayonnaise Sauce

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 Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat the yolk of the egg in a bowl.

  2. Gradually add the salad oil while whisking.

  3. Stir in the tarragon vinegar and chopped parsley.

  4. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt to taste.

  5. Whisk everything together until well combined.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Tarragon + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 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

Egg yolk
Emulsifies the oil and vinegar, holding the sauce together as a thick, smooth emulsion.
Salad oil
Forms the bulk of the sauce, giving it richness and a creamy body once emulsified.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the richness of the oil.

The step that matters

Gradually add the salad oil while whisking. Adding oil too fast overwhelms the egg yolk, so droplets cannot be dispersed and the emulsion breaks into a greasy, separated sauce.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Dillfits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits less well
  4. Thymefits less well

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