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Sauce

Sauce Remoulade

A sauce made by blending hard‑boiled egg yolks, raw yolk, mustard, oil, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,563 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Sauce Remoulade

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a mortar, rub the hard-boiled yolks into a smooth paste with the raw yolk.

  2. Stir in the salad oil and German mustard.

  3. Add tarragon vinegar, chopped sardelle, parsley, pepper, salt, and a little sugar if desired.

  4. Optionally, mix in chopped onion and capers.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Tarragon + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together901 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Tarragon + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Hard-boiled egg yolks
Their fine texture breaks down into a smooth base that thickens and carries the sauce.
Raw egg yolk
Adds richness and helps bind the oil into a stable, creamy emulsion.
Salad oil
Provides the fat that gives the sauce its body and silky mouthfeel.
German mustard
Its emulsifiers help hold the oil and yolks together and add sharp flavour.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity that cuts the richness and brightens the flavour.

The step that matters

Stir in the salad oil and German mustard. Oil must be added gradually to the yolk paste so it emulsifies. Adding it too fast can break the sauce, leaving it oily and separated instead of thick and smooth.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, parsley, tarragon, vinegar, mustard, pepper, sugar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, parsley, tarragon, vinegar, mustard, pepper, sugar. 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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