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Sauce Piquant

A savory sauce made with parsley, egg yolks, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, vinegar, butter, onion, and stock, served with fish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Sauce Piquant

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Rub the chopped parsley into a paste.

  2. Gradually add the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs while rubbing.

  3. Mix in the dry mustard and Worcestershire sauce until smooth.

  4. Add the vinegar, butter, and grated onion, mixing well.

  5. Gradually stir in the boiling stock.

  6. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Serve

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

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

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

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

  3. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Parsley + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Their fat and emulsifying proteins bind the sauce and give it a smooth, rich body.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel as it melts into the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and cuts through the richness.
Dry mustard
Contributes a sharp, pungent bite and helps stabilize the emulsion.
Parsley
Adds fresh, green aroma and a mild herbal flavor.

The step that matters

Gradually add the egg yolks while rubbing. Adding the yolks slowly while working them into the paste lets them blend evenly into a smooth emulsion. Adding them too fast can leave lumps and a grainy, separated texture.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, egg, mustard, sauce, vinegar, butter, pepper. 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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