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Sauce

Vinaigrette Sauce

A creamy sauce made with salad oil, tarragon vinegar, gherkin, parsley, shallot, butter, cream, egg yolks, mustard, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 602 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Vinaigrette Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, mix the salad oil and tarragon vinegar well.

  2. Add the chopped gherkin, parsley, and shallot.

  3. Season with salt and pepper.

Make the sauce

  1. In a separate bowl, combine the butter, cream, egg yolks, tarragon vinegar, pepper, salt, and mustard.

  2. Place the bowl over a pan of boiling water and beat the mixture until it thickens and becomes creamy. Be careful to prevent curdling.

  3. If it curdles, add 2 more egg yolks.

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. Tarragon + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together602 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Tarragon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Tarragon + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify the mixture and thicken it as they heat, giving a creamy body.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the sauce.
Cream
Adds moisture and softness, mellowing the sharpness of the vinegar.
Salad oil
Provides the fat base that carries the flavors of the dressing.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity and a sharp herbal note that brightens the sauce.
Mustard
Helps stabilize the emulsion and adds a sharp, savory bite.

The step that matters

Beat over gently simmering water and watch for curdling. Egg yolks thicken as their proteins set with gentle heat. If the bowl gets too hot or the mixture overheats, the yolks scramble and the sauce curdles instead of becoming smooth and creamy.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tarragon, vinegar, parsley, pepper, butter, cream, egg):

  1. Shallotthe original
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Mustardfits less well
  4. Asparagusfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against tarragon, vinegar, parsley, pepper, butter, cream, egg. 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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