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Mayonnaise Dressing

A creamy dressing made with egg yolks, cream, vinegar, butter, mustard, salt, sugar, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Mayonnaise Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, combine vinegar and butter. Heat until boiling.

  2. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks with cream, sugar, and mustard until light.

  3. Slowly add the egg mixture to the boiling vinegar, stirring constantly until it boils again.

  4. Remove from heat and beat until cool.

Finish

  1. Fold in the whipped cream just before serving.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify and thicken the dressing as they cook, giving it a rich, smooth body.
Butter
Adds fat for a rich mouthfeel and smooth texture.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the dressing's texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the sharp vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the dressing its tang.
Whipped cream
Lightens the dressing and adds airy, creamy body when folded in.

The step that matters

Adding the egg mixture to the boiling vinegar. Egg yolks scramble if they get too hot too fast. Adding the mixture slowly while stirring constantly tempers the eggs, so the dressing thickens smoothly instead of curdling.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, vinegar, butter, sugar. 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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