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Sauce

Rimolade, for Cold Turkey or Fowl

A sauce made with egg yolks, olive oil, eschalot, parsley, vinegar, salt, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Rimolade, for Cold Turkey or Fowl

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks and olive oil together until thick.

  2. Stir in the chopped eschalot and parsley.

  3. Add vinegar, salt, and cayenne pepper, and mix well.

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

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

  2. Parsley + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,649 recipes

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

  3. Olive + vinegartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  4. Olive + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

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

  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

Egg yolks
Emulsify with the olive oil to give the sauce a thick, creamy body.
Olive oil
Provides fat that, emulsified with the yolks, gives the sauce its smooth richness.
Eschalot
Adds a mild, sharp onion flavour that cuts through the richness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the fat.

The step that matters

Beating the egg yolks and olive oil until thick. Yolks are emulsifiers that hold oil droplets in suspension. Adding oil too quickly or beating too little can cause the sauce to split or stay thin, so the oil should be incorporated gradually while beating.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Tarragonfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Dillfits about as well
  4. Garlicfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, olive, vinegar, 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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