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Dessert

Mayonnaise Dressing

A creamy dressing made with mustard, egg yolks, olive oil, vinegar, lemon juice, paprika, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Mayonnaise Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mayonnaise

  1. Mix the mustard, egg yolks, and salt together in a bowl.

  2. Slowly add the olive oil drop by drop until the mixture begins to thicken.

  3. Once thickened, add the oil a little more quickly.

  4. If the dressing gets too thick, thin it with a little lemon juice or vinegar.

  5. Alternate adding the oil, vinegar, and lemon juice until all ingredients are used.

Finish and serve

  1. Just before serving, fold in the whipped cream.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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. Olive + vinegartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  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
Emulsify the oil and water so the dressing thickens into a smooth, stable sauce.
Olive oil
Provides the fat that, dispersed into the yolks, gives the dressing its body and richness.
Mustard
Helps stabilise the emulsion so the oil stays suspended instead of separating.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the richness of the oil and yolks and thins the dressing.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that balances the richness of the oil and yolks and thins the dressing.
Whipped cream
Adds airiness and a lighter, softer texture to the finished dressing.

The step that matters

Adding the oil slowly at the start. Egg yolks can only hold a limited amount of oil at first. Adding oil too fast before the mixture thickens breaks the emulsion, so the dressing separates and looks oily and curdled.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mustard, egg, olive, vinegar, cream):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Cherryfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Coconutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, egg, olive, vinegar, cream. 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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