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Sauce

Mayonnaise Sauce

A creamy sauce made from egg yolks, mustard, vinegar, oil, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Mayonnaise Sauce

Why it works: Mustard and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 901 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Mayonnaise Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine the egg yolks, mustard, salt, and pepper in a bowl and stir quickly with a wooden spoon.

  2. Slowly add the oil drop by drop, then more quickly, adding a few drops of vinegar at intervals.

  3. Continue stirring until the mixture is the consistency of very thick cream.

  4. Stir in the cream; if the sauce is too thick, add a little cold water.

  5. In hot weather, place the bowl in a vessel of crushed ice while making the mayonnaise.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together901 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Pepper + tarragontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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 water into a thick, stable sauce.
Salad oil
Provides the fat that gives mayonnaise its rich body and texture.
French mustard
Helps hold the emulsion together and adds sharpness.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity and flavor that balances the richness of the oil.

The step that matters

Adding the oil slowly. Oil must be dispersed into the yolks in small amounts at first so the emulsion forms. Adding it too fast can break the sauce into separated oil and liquid.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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