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Mayonnaise Dressing for Lettuce or Slaw

A creamy mayonnaise dressing made with egg yolks, sugar, vinegar, butter, mustard, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Mayonnaise Dressing for Lettuce or Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Beat the egg yolks well in a bowl.

  2. Add sugar, salt, black pepper, mustard, and cayenne pepper; stir well.

  3. In a saucepan, bring the vinegar to a boil and add the butter.

  4. Pour the boiling mixture into the egg mixture while stirring constantly.

  5. Mix well and let it cool before using.

Serve

  1. To serve, shave the heart of a firm white cabbage, soak in cold water until crisp, drain, and pour the dressing over it.

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 + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  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 butter and vinegar mixture, giving the dressing a thick, smooth body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping make the dressing creamy and smooth.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the richness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that rounds out the sharp vinegar.
Mustard
Adds sharpness and helps stabilise the emulsion.

The step that matters

Pour the boiling mixture into the egg mixture while stirring constantly. Hot liquid can scramble raw egg yolks if added too fast or without stirring. Pouring slowly while stirring constantly gently warms the yolks so they thicken into a smooth emulsion rather than curdling.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Celerythe original

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