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Salad

Mayonnaise Salad Dressing

A creamy dressing made from hard‑boiled egg yolks, syrup, cayenne pepper, salt, mustard, condensed milk, tarragon vinegar, and olive oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, mash the yolks of the hard‑boiled eggs.

  2. Add the syrup, cayenne pepper, salt, mustard, and condensed milk.

  3. Mix well to combine.

  4. Gradually add the tarragon vinegar and olive oil, alternating between the two.

  5. Rub the mixture well to form a perfect emulsion.

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. Mustard + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together901 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Syrup + condensed milktop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together118 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Pepper + tarragontop 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. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 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 yolks
Their lecithin emulsifies the oil and vinegar, holding the dressing together as a smooth sauce.
Olive oil
Provides the fat that gives the dressing its body and rich mouthfeel.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavour and balances the richness of the oil.
Mustard
Contains emulsifying compounds that help stabilise the oil in the mixture.
Condensed milk
Adds sweetness and creamy body to the dressing.

The step that matters

Adding the vinegar and olive oil. If the oil is poured in too quickly, the yolk mixture cannot absorb it and the emulsion breaks into a greasy, separated sauce. Adding it gradually, alternating with the vinegar, lets the egg yolk coat each droplet and keeps the dressing smooth.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, syrup, pepper, condensed milk, tarragon, vinegar, olive. 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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