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Mayonnaise Dressing

A custard-like dressing made with milk or cream, vinegar, egg yolks, oil, sugar, salt, and mustard.

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

Mix the base

  1. In a bowl, mix the salad oil, sugar, coarse sea salt, and mustard until well combined.

  2. Add the well-beaten egg yolks and mix thoroughly.

  3. Stir in the vinegar and then the milk or cream.

Cook the custard

  1. Place the bowl in a saucepan with boiling water, ensuring the water reaches halfway up the bowl.

  2. Stir the mixture over heat until it thickens to a custard-like 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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + mustardtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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
Their proteins set as they heat, thickening the dressing into a custard-like texture.
Salad oil
Adds fat that gives the dressing a smooth, rich mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that gives the dressing its tang.
Milk or single cream
Adds moisture and richness, loosening the dressing and softening its flavor.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the vinegar and mustard.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavor and helps the oil and liquids blend smoothly.

The step that matters

Stirring the mixture over heat until it thickens. Egg yolks thicken as their proteins set, but if they get too hot they scramble and turn grainy. Keeping the water gently boiling and stirring constantly lets the custard thicken evenly and stay smooth.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Cucumberfits about as well
  4. Sweet potatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, vinegar, egg, 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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