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Mayonnaise Verte

A green mayonnaise made with egg yolks, olive oil, vinegar, herbs, and optional spinach juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Chervil and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 824 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mayonnaise Verte

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, combine the egg yolks and vinegar.

  2. Slowly whisk in the olive oil until the mixture thickens.

  3. Add the chopped chervil, parsley, and tarragon, mixing well.

  4. If desired, add spinach juice drop by drop until the desired green color is achieved.

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. Chervil + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together824 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Parsley + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Chervil + spinachtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together78 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Chervil + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together774 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Parsley + spinachtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,025 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsifiers that bind oil and vinegar into a stable, thick sauce.
Olive oil
Provides the fat that, emulsified with the yolks, gives mayonnaise its rich body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and helps stabilize the emulsion.
Chervil
Contributes a delicate, mild herbal aroma and fresh flavor.
Tarragon
Contributes a distinctive anise-like aroma and flavor.

The step that matters

Slowly whisk in the olive oil. Oil must be added gradually so droplets are dispersed and emulsified by the egg yolk lecithin. Adding it too fast can cause the mixture to break and separate instead of thickening.

Swap the spinach

The recipe marks spinach as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, olive, vinegar, chervil, parsley, tarragon):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Spinachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, olive, vinegar, chervil, parsley, tarragon. 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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