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Sauce

Pompeian Sauce Tartare

A sauce made with raw egg yolk, Pompeian olive oil, salt, lemon juice, parsley, capers, gherkins, and onion.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 14,037 recipes mention both. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Pompeian Sauce Tartare

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a bowl, add the yolk of the raw egg.

  2. Slowly add the olive oil drop by drop while constantly beating the mixture until very smooth.

  3. Add the coarse sea salt and lemon juice, stirring until the sauce thickens.

Finish and serve

  1. Fold in the chopped parsley, capers, gherkins, and finely chopped onion.

  2. Keep the sauce cool until ready to 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,550 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Olive + caperstop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,688 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Lemon + caperstop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,222 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Olive + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together9,649 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolk
Emulsifies the oil and water in the lemon, so the sauce becomes thick and smooth.
Olive oil
Provides the fat that gives the sauce its rich body and mouthfeel.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the richness of the oil.
Capers
Add a briny, sharp flavour that cuts through the richness of the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the olive oil slowly. Oil must be added drop by drop while beating, so the yolk can emulsify it. Adding it too fast breaks the emulsion, leaving a greasy, runny sauce that won't thicken.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, olive, lemon, parsley, capers):

  1. Shallotbetter flavor fit
  2. Kalebetter flavor fit
  3. Chivebetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, olive, lemon, parsley, capers. 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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