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Dessert

Mayonnaise Dressing

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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, mix the mustard, salt, powdered sugar, and cayenne pepper.

  2. Add the egg yolks and mix well.

  3. Gradually add 1 tablespoon of vinegar while stirring constantly.

  4. Slowly drizzle in the olive oil, starting drop by drop, while stirring continuously.

  5. As the mixture thickens, thin it out with additional vinegar or lemon juice.

  6. Continue to alternate adding oil and vinegar or lemon juice until all ingredients are used, stirring or beating constantly.

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. Lemon + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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 vinegar, giving the dressing its thick, creamy structure.
Olive oil
Supplies the fat that forms the body and rich texture of the dressing.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens flavour and helps thin the emulsion as it thickens.
Vinegar
Adds acidity for sharpness and helps thin the emulsion as it thickens.
Mustard
Acts as an additional emulsifier that helps keep oil and vinegar blended.

The step that matters

Adding the oil slowly while stirring constantly. Oil must be dispersed into the egg yolk in tiny droplets so it can be held in suspension. Adding it too fast overwhelms the yolk and the emulsion breaks, leaving the dressing oily and separated.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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