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Mayonnaise

A thick, emulsified sauce made from egg yolks, mustard, oil, vinegar, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Mayonnaise

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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mayonnaise

  1. In a bowl, mix the hard‑boiled egg yolks, mustard, salt, and pepper.

  2. Gradually add the oil and vinegar while whisking continuously.

  3. If the sauce curdles, stir in the raw egg yolk until smooth.

Add flavourings

  1. For added flavor, mix in tarragon, cucumber, or eschalot vinegar, Chili vinegar, or Rajah's sauce.

  2. Optionally, pound minced eschalots or garlic with the egg yolks for extra taste.

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. Mustard + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Mustard + hazelnuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together44 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  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

Hard-boiled egg yolks
Emulsifying base that helps hold the oil and vinegar together as a smooth sauce.
Oil
Supplies the fat that gives mayonnaise its rich, thick body.
Vinegar
Adds sharpness that balances the richness of the oil and egg yolks.
Mustard
Helps stabilise the emulsion and adds a sharp, savoury note.
Raw egg yolk
Rescues a curdled sauce by adding fresh emulsifier to bring it back together.

The step that matters

Adding the oil and vinegar. Oil must be added slowly while whisking so tiny droplets disperse into the egg yolk. Adding it too fast breaks the emulsion, and the sauce curdles and separates.

Swap the tarragon

The recipe marks tarragon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, mustard, pepper, vinegar, sauce, hazelnut, garlic):

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Tarragonthe original
  3. Parsleyfits less well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, mustard, pepper, vinegar, sauce, hazelnut, garlic. 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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