Skip to content

Mayonnaise Sauce

A historical recipe from A guide to modern cookery, by Escoffier, A. (Auguste) (1907).

A historical recipe

A guide to modern cookery, by Escoffier, A. (Auguste) (1907). Project Gutenberg eBook #71395.

From an old book: a historical recipe, not current advice. Its methods, additives and storage may be unsafe by today's standards. Its words name: raw egg. Check current food-safety guidance before following this.

Source and licence

From A guide to modern cookery, by Escoffier, A. (Auguste) (1907). Digitised by Project Gutenberg, eBook #71395 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/71395). Public domain in the USA; its status may differ elsewhere.

Read the original Public domain in the USA

What was changed: As printed, from the book's text; Project Gutenberg's header and licence removed. Ingredient lines were read out of the text by a program. A historical recipe, not current advice.

France. Associated with France by the book is about French cookery (Cooking, French); the recipe itself names no place (confidence 0.4). "Associated with" means only that the evidence named here links this recipe to that place. A recipe isn't labelled as representing an entire country because a source associates it with one, and regional origins are kept where the source gives them.

  • Raw egg. Raw or lightly cooked egg carries a risk, above all for children, older people, anyone pregnant or unwell.

Create an image with FoodStudio Made by our AI generator from your own prepaid SecondMem credits. We keep no picture from the source.

Ingredients

Method

  1. Put in a basin the yolks of six raw eggs, after having removed the cores.
  2. Season them with one-half oz.
  3. of table-salt and a little cayenne pepper.
  4. Gradually pour one-fifth pint of vinegar on the yolks while whisking them briskly.
  5. When the vinegar is absorbed add one quart of oil, letting the latter trickle down in a thread, constantly stirring the sauce meanwhile.
  6. The sauce is finished by the addition of the juice of a lemon and three tablespoonfuls of boiling water—the purpose of the latter being to ensure the coherence of the sauce and to prevent its turning.
  7. Mayonnaise prepared in this way is rather liquid, but it need only be left to rest a few hours in order to thicken considerably.
  8. Unless it be exposed to too low a temperature, the Mayonnaise, prepared as above, never turns, and may be kept for several days without the fear of anything happening to it.
  9. Merely cover it to keep the dust away.
  10. Remarks.—In the matter of that sauce there exist endless prejudices, which I must attempt to refute:— 1.
  11. If the sauce forms badly, or not at all, the reason is that the oil has been added too rapidly at first, before the addition of the vinegar, and that its assimilation by the yolks has not operated normally.
  12. 2.
  13. It is quite an error to suppose that it is necessary to work over ice or in a cold room.
  14. Cold is rather deleterious to the Mayonnaise, and is invariably the cause of this sauce turning in winter.
  15. In the cold season the oil should be slightly warmed, or, at least, kept at the temperature of the kitchen, though it is best to make it in a moderately warm place.
  16. 3.
  17. It is a further error to suppose that the seasoning interferes with the making of the sauce, for salt, in solution, rather provokes the cohering force of the yolks.