Name: Salad Sauce a LA Rhys
Ingredients: 2 hard-boiled egg yolks; 2 raw eggs; 3 tablespoons salad oil; 1 tablespoon mustard; 2 tablespoons vinegar; a little anchovy sauce; 1 well-boiled potato

Why it works: Anchovy and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Salad Sauce a LA Rhys

Ingredients

Directions

Beat the hard-boiled yolks with the raw eggs until smooth.
Add the well-boiled potato and mix until completely smooth.
Stir in the salad oil, mustard, anchovy sauce, and vinegar.

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.

Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,057 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Mustard + potatotop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,340 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Egg + anchovytop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,330 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Mustard + saucetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,120 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks: Hard-boiled yolks add richness and a smooth, creamy body to the sauce.
Raw eggs: Raw eggs add liquid and help bind the sauce into a smooth emulsion.
Salad oil: Oil provides fat and body, giving the sauce its silky, rich texture.
Vinegar: Vinegar adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness.
Potato: Well-boiled potato thickens the sauce and adds body and smoothness.

The step that matters

Mixing until completely smooth. Lumps of yolk or potato stay visible if not fully broken down. Beating the yolks and eggs first and fully mashing the potato lets the oil disperse evenly into a stable, smooth sauce.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, mustard, vinegar, anchovy, sauce):

Horseradishfits better
Shallotfits better
Lettucefits better
Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, mustard, vinegar, anchovy, sauce. 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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Salad Sauce a LA Rhys