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Sauce

Montpellier Butter

A cold sauce made from pickled anchovies, capers, gherkins, peppercorns, hard‑boiled yolks, tarragon vinegar, shallot, raw egg yolk, and olive oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Montpellier Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Make the butter

  1. In a mortar, combine the pickled anchovies, capers, gherkins, peppercorns, hard-boiled yolks, tarragon vinegar, shallot, and raw egg yolk.

  2. Pound the mixture until it forms a stiff cream.

  3. Gradually add enough olive oil to make the mixture pass through a sieve.

  4. Let it sit until firm.

Serve

  1. Serve as a cold sauce with fish or meat.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Tarragon + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together602 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Capers + olivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,688 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

Hard-boiled egg yolks
Form a smooth, rich base that holds the oil emulsion together.
Raw egg yolk
Acts as an emulsifier, helping the olive oil stay blended into the mixture.
Olive oil
Provides fat and body, turning the mixture into a thick, spreadable butter.
Anchovies
Add a salty, savoury depth that rounds out the sauce.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich yolks and oil.

The step that matters

Adding the olive oil. Oil must be added gradually so the yolks can emulsify it. Adding it too fast causes the mixture to split and lose its creamy, stiff texture.

“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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