Skip to main content
Main

Ideal Olive Oil Mayonnaise

A mayonnaise made with olive oil, egg yolks, lemon juice, vinegar, salt, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Ideal Olive Oil Mayonnaise

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mayonnaise

  1. Place the egg yolks in a chilled bowl and set it in a pan of salted cracked ice.

  2. Using a silver fork or tablespoon, begin to whip the yolks, adding the olive oil a drop at a time.

  3. Continue to beat in this manner until about 2 tablespoons of oil have been added.

  4. Then alternate adding the oil and vinegar, a teaspoon at a time, until all the vinegar and lemon juice are incorporated.

  5. Continue to beat and add the remaining olive oil until the mixture is very stiff.

  6. Blend the salt and mustard, then whip into the mayonnaise at the end.

Chill and store

  1. Store in the coldest part of the refrigerator until serving.

  2. If it separates, chill and whip briskly to thicken again.

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. Lemon + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Olive + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Olive + vinegartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  5. Lemon + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,816 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsifiers that hold the oil and vinegar together in a stable, thick mixture.
Olive oil
Provides the fat that, dispersed into droplets, builds the rich, stiff body of the mayonnaise.
White vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens flavour and helps keep the emulsion stable.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and fresh flavour that balances the richness of the oil.

The step that matters

Adding the oil slowly at the start. Egg yolk can only emulsify a limited amount of oil at first. Adding oil a drop at a time lets each droplet be coated before more is added. Too much oil too early causes the mixture to separate and break.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Cherryfits about as well
  4. Limefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, olive, vinegar, mustard. 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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes