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Sauce Tartare

A creamy sauce made with egg yolks, mustard, sugar, and olive oil, flavored with capers, pickles, olives, parsley, shallot, and tarragon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Fannie Merritt Farmer · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Capers and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 405 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Sauce Tartare

Ingredients

Directions

Make the emulsion

  1. Mix mustard, sugar, salt, and cayenne; add yolks of eggs, and stir until thoroughly mixed, setting bowl in pan of ice-water.

  2. Add oil, at first drop by drop, stirring with a wooden spoon or wire whisk.

  3. As mixture thickens, dilute with vinegar, when oil may be added more rapidly.

Finish and serve

  1. Keep in cool place until ready to serve, then add remaining ingredients.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

274Calories
8 gProtein
20 gFat
17 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 12 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Olive Oil1 tbsp (14g)119
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Shallot1 tbsp minced (10g)7
Cayenne1 tsp (1.8g)6
Olive1 large (4g)4
Mustard1 tsp (5g) yellow3
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
Capers1 tbsp (9g) drained2
Tarragon1 tsp dried (0.5g)2
Parsley1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)1
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Fannie Merritt Farmer. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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. Capers + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together405 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Mustard + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together624 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Mustard + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together859 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Capers + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,550 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 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 yolks
Emulsifier that binds the oil and vinegar into a thick, stable sauce.
Olive oil
Provides the fat that, dispersed in the yolks, gives the sauce its body and richness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the richness and thins the sauce as it thickens.
Mustard
Helps stabilise the emulsion and adds sharpness.

The step that matters

Adding the oil. Oil must be added slowly at first, drop by drop, so the yolk can absorb it into a stable emulsion. Adding it too fast can break the sauce into separate oil and liquid.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mustard, sugar, egg, olive, vinegar, capers, shallot):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Dillfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, sugar, egg, olive, vinegar, capers, shallot. 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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