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Salad

Aspic Mayonnaise Dressing

A dressing made with aspic jelly, salad oil, vinegar, sugar, mustard, salt, cayenne pepper, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Aspic Mayonnaise Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Melt the aspic jelly or consomme slightly.

  2. Place the melted aspic in a bowl set in ice water.

  3. In a separate bowl, mix the vinegar, sugar, mustard, salt, and Cayenne pepper.

Make the dressing

  1. Whisk the melted jelly until it begins to thicken.

  2. Gradually add the oil and vinegar mixture, a little at a time.

  3. Add the lemon juice last.

  4. Continue to beat until well combined.

  5. Keep beating while the bowl is in the ice water for a whiter dressing.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Mustard + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,816 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Aspic jelly or consomme
Forms the jelly base that thickens and gives the dressing its body and set.
Salad oil
Provides fat that emulsifies into the jelly, giving a rich, smooth texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the dressing its sharp, tangy flavour.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and lemon with mild sweetness.
Mustard
Its emulsifying compounds help hold the oil and liquid together and add sharpness.

The step that matters

Gradually add the oil and vinegar mixture, a little at a time.. Adding oil slowly while beating lets it disperse into tiny droplets that stay suspended. Adding it too fast can break the emulsion, leaving the dressing oily and separated.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Limefits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Cherryfits about as well
  4. Mangofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, mustard, pepper. 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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