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Recipe for Mayonnaise

A creamy sauce made from egg yolks, oil, vinegar or lemon juice, salt, and optional spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and vinegar 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 ↓

Recipe for Mayonnaise

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat the yolks of the eggs in a bowl.

  2. Add salt, paprika or cayenne, sugar, mustard, and vinegar or lemon juice; mix well.

  3. Gradually add olive oil, starting with a few drops, while mixing continuously.

  4. Once the mixture thickens, add the oil more quickly while beating with a whisk.

  5. If the dressing becomes too thick, add a little lemon juice or vinegar to adjust the 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. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Olive + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

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

  3. Mustard + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Vinegar + olivetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  5. Mustard + lemontop 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
Lecithin in the yolks emulsifies the oil and water so the sauce stays smooth and thick.
Olive oil
Forms the bulk of the sauce, providing richness and body as it is suspended in droplets.
Lemon juice or vinegar
Adds acidity for bright flavour and helps keep the emulsion stable.
Mustard
Its natural emulsifiers help stabilise the emulsion and add a sharp flavour.

The step that matters

Adding the oil gradually at the start. Oil must be added in very small amounts at first so the droplets are dispersed and absorbed by the yolk. Adding it too fast breaks the emulsion, leaving a runny, separated sauce.

Swap the mustard

The recipe marks mustard as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, vinegar, olive, lemon):

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

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