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Sauce Tartare

A cold sauce made from finely chopped pickles, parsley, capers, tarragon vinegar, onion juice, and mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Capers and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 379 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Sauce Tartare

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the pickles, parsley, and capers very fine.

  2. Mix the chopped ingredients with tarragon vinegar and onion juice.

  3. Add the mixture to the mayonnaise and stir well.

Serve

  1. Keep the sauce cold until served.

  2. Serve with fried fish.

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. Capers + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together379 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Parsley + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Parsley + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,550 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Capers + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,381 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Mayonnaise
Forms the creamy base that carries the chopped flavourings.
Pickles
Add tangy acidity and crunch to the sauce.
Capers
Add a sharp, briny bite that cuts through the richness.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity and a gentle anise-like aroma.

The step that matters

Chopping the pickles, parsley, and capers very fine. Fine pieces distribute evenly through the mayonnaise, so each spoonful has a consistent texture and flavour rather than chunks of sharp pickle or caper.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, capers, tarragon, vinegar):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, capers, tarragon, vinegar. 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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