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Mayonnaise Dressing

A creamy dressing made from egg yolks, mustard, sugar, spices, vinegar, lemon juice, and oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Mayonnaise Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, combine the egg yolks, mustard, powdered sugar, salt, cayenne pepper, paprika, vinegar, and lemon juice.

  2. Beat the mixture vigorously with a Dover beater for 2 minutes.

  3. Gradually add the oil while continuing to beat 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.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Mustard + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,816 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. 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

Egg yolks
Emulsify the oil into the acid mixture, giving the dressing its thick, creamy body.
Mustard
Helps stabilise the emulsion so the oil stays suspended instead of separating.
Oil
Forms the bulk of the dressing, providing richness and a smooth, fatty mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the richness of the oil and yolks.
Lemon juice
Adds bright acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the fat.
Powdered sugar
Adds a small amount of sweetness that rounds out the sharp acidity.

The step that matters

Adding the oil gradually. Oil must be added slowly while beating so that tiny droplets are dispersed and surrounded by egg yolk lecithin. Adding it too fast can overwhelm the yolks, and the emulsion may break and separate.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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