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Tartar Sauce

A creamy sauce made with egg yolks, oil, pickles, capers, mustard, herbs, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Tartar Sauce

Why it works: Capers and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 405 recipes mention both. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Tartar Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a basin, rub the yolk of a cold hard boiled egg through a sieve.

  2. Add the raw egg yolks, salt, and pepper; mix with a wooden spoon.

  3. Gradually add the salad oil while stirring continuously until the mixture thickens.

  4. Moisten with a little tarragon or common vinegar, then continue adding oil until all is used, keeping the sauce thick.

  5. Stir in the gherkins, capers, shallot, parsley, French mustard, cayenne pepper, and more salt if needed.

  6. The sauce is now ready for use.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Capers + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together405 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Capers + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together624 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Shallot + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together602 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Capers + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together379 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Shallot + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together859 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

Raw egg yolks
Emulsify the oil into the sauce and thicken it as it is whisked.
Salad oil
Forms the body of the sauce, giving it richness and a thick, spoonable texture.
French mustard
Helps hold the emulsion together and adds sharp flavour.
Gherkins
Add acidity and crunch that cut through the richness of the oil.
Capers
Add salty, sharp flavour that brightens the sauce.

The step that matters

Gradually add the salad oil while stirring continuously. Oil must be added slowly while stirring so the yolks can emulsify it. Adding it too fast can break the emulsion, leaving a thin, oily sauce that will not thicken.

Flavor stand-ins for the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, pepper, capers, shallot, parsley, mustard, tarragon):

  1. Chivebetter flavor fit
  2. Horseradishbetter flavor fit
  3. Lettucebetter flavor fit
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, capers, shallot, parsley, mustard, tarragon. 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.

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