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Sauce

Tartare Sauce

A creamy condiment made with raw egg yolk, mustard, fish sauce, olive oil, lemon juice, salt, Tabasco, and chives.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and chive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 587 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Tartare Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the emulsion

  1. In a bowl, combine the egg yolk and dry mustard, mixing well.

  2. Slowly add the fish sauce and olive oil drop by drop while stirring continuously until the mixture is stiff.

Finish the sauce

  1. Stir in the lemon juice, salt, Tabasco sauce, and chopped chives or green onion.

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. Mustard + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together587 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Olive + chivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Olive + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Mustard + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Lemon + chivetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolk
Lecithin in the yolk holds the oil and liquids together, giving the sauce its thick, stiff body.
Olive oil
Supplies fat that, emulsified into the yolk, creates the sauce's rich, smooth texture.
Dry mustard
Its natural emulsifiers help the oil and yolk stay blended and stable.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and cuts through the richness of the oil.
Fish sauce
Contributes salty, savoury depth that seasons the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the fish sauce and olive oil drop by drop. The liquid must be added slowly while stirring so that tiny droplets disperse into the yolk and form a stable emulsion. Adding it too fast can cause the sauce to break, becoming oily and loose instead of stiff.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, mustard, fish sauce, olive, sauce, chive):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, mustard, fish sauce, olive, sauce, chive. 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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