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Mayonnaise Dressing

A creamy dressing made with egg yolks, mustard, oil, vinegar, salt, and water.

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

  1. In a bowl, mix the salt and egg yolks with a wooden spoon.

  2. Add the dry mustard and mix until smooth using a Dover egg beater.

  3. Gradually add the salad oil, a few drops at a time, beating until thick.

  4. Add the vinegar until the dressing reaches the desired consistency.

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. Mustard + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,210 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Vinegar + eggtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Vinegar and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,922 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 into a thick, stable dressing.
Salad oil
Provides fat that, dispersed in droplets, gives the dressing its rich body.
Strong vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavor and thins the dressing to the desired consistency.
Dry mustard
Its natural emulsifiers help hold the oil and yolk mixture together.

The step that matters

Adding the oil gradually. Oil must be added a few drops at a time so it disperses into tiny droplets that the egg yolk can coat. Adding it too fast breaks the emulsion, leaving the dressing thin and separated.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, egg. 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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