Name: Sauce Tartare
Ingredients: 1 cup mayonnaise; 2 teaspoons English mustard powder; 15 grams finely chopped shallots; 15 grams chopped pickles; 1 tablespoon ravigote sauce; 1 teaspoon chili vinegar or a pinch of cayenne pepper

Why it works: Mustard and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 859 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Sauce Tartare

Ingredients

1 cup mayonnaise
2 teaspoons English mustard powder
15 grams finely chopped shallots
15 grams chopped pickles
1 tablespoon ravigote sauce
1 teaspoon chili vinegar or a pinch of cayenne pepper

Directions

Prepare 1 cup of mayonnaise.
Add 2 teaspoons of English mustard powder.
Mix in 15 grams of finely chopped shallots and 15 grams of chopped pickles.
Stir in 1 tablespoon of ravigote sauce and 1 teaspoon of chili vinegar or a pinch of cayenne pepper.
Combine all ingredients well and serve.

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.

Mustard + shallottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together859 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Shallot + vinegartop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,374 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Mustard + saucetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,120 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Shallot + saucetop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,303 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Mayonnaise: Forms the creamy base that carries all the other flavours and gives the sauce its body.
English mustard powder: Adds sharp, pungent heat that cuts through the richness of the mayonnaise.
Shallots: Contribute a mild, sharp onion flavour and a little texture.
Pickles: Add acidity and crunch that brighten the sauce.
Ravigote sauce: Adds herbaceous, tangy complexity typical of a classic French condiment.

Flavor stand-ins for the shallot

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

Horseradishbetter flavor fit
Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, sauce, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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.