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Dessert

Mayonnaise Dressing

A creamy dressing made from mustard, egg yolks, olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and cayenne pepper.

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

Make the emulsion

  1. In a bowl, mix the mustard, salt, and cayenne until well blended.

  2. Add the egg yolks and beat well with a wooden spoon.

  3. Add a few drops of olive oil and stir steadily.

  4. Continue adding oil gradually until half of it has been used.

Finish and adjust

  1. Then, alternate adding lemon juice and the remaining oil.

  2. If the dressing is too thick, add a small amount of cream or the beaten egg white just before serving.

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. Olive + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Mustard + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Lecithin in the yolks emulsifies the oil and water, holding the sauce together and giving it body.
Olive oil
Forms the bulk of the sauce, providing richness and a smooth, thick texture as it is dispersed.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and helps balance the richness of the oil.
Mustard
Its natural emulsifiers help stabilise the emulsion and add sharpness.

The step that matters

Adding the oil gradually. Oil must be added slowly, especially at first, so droplets are fully dispersed into the yolk. Adding it too fast can break the emulsion, leaving the sauce oily and separated.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, olive, pepper, 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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