Skip to main content
Salad

Tartake Sauce

A creamy sauce made with pickles, onion, mayonnaise, vinegar, and capers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Capers and cucumber match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 303 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Tartake Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the pickles and onion finely.

Make the sauce

  1. In a bowl, combine the chopped pickles, onion, vinegar, and mayonnaise, and mix well until combined.

  2. Just before serving, add the 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. Capers + cucumbertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together303 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Cucumber + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 recipes

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

  4. Vinegar + cucumbertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  5. Vinegar + oniontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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 other flavours and gives the sauce its body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich mayonnaise and balances the sweetness of the pickles.
Cucumber pickles
Provide crunch and a tangy, sour flavour that defines tartar sauce.
Onion
Adds sharp, pungent flavour and a bit of texture through its fine chopped pieces.
Capers
Add briny, sharp bursts of flavour that stand out against the creamy base.

The step that matters

Adding the capers just before serving. Capers release liquid and their sharp flavour can spread and dull over time. Adding them last keeps the sauce's texture firm and their briny bite distinct.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, capers, cucumber. 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.

More tartar sauce recipes

Hot 3 See all 158 →

You might also like

Chicken SaladChicken Salad623 recipesSalad DressingSalad Dressing491 recipesTomato SaladTomato Salad179 recipesCold SlawCold Slaw160 recipes