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Cold Sauces of Egg and Oil

A cold sauce made from egg yolk, oil, vinegar, mustard, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and mustard 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 ↓

Cold Sauces of Egg and Oil

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, add the egg yolk.

  2. Slowly add the oil, starting with 1 teaspoon at a time, mixing thoroughly after each addition.

  3. Once the mixture begins to thicken, you can add the oil more quickly.

  4. After achieving the desired consistency, stir in vinegar, mustard, and salt to taste.

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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + mustardtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,210 recipes

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

  3. Egg + vinegartop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and vinegar 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 yolk
Emulsifies the oil and water in the sauce, holding it together and giving it body.
Oil
Provides fat that is dispersed into the yolk to build a thick, rich texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the richness of the oil.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavor and helps stabilize the emulsion.

The step that matters

Adding the oil slowly at the start. Oil added too fast before the yolk has emulsified can break the mixture, leaving it greasy and separated. Adding small amounts while mixing thoroughly lets the droplets disperse into the yolk, so the sauce thickens smoothly.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, vinegar. 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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