Name: Tartare Sauce
Ingredients: 3 olives, chopped; 1 gherkin, chopped; 1 tablespoon capers, chopped; ½ pint mayonnaise dressing; 1 tablespoon tarragon vinegar

Why it works: Capers and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 379 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Tartare Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

Chop the olives, gherkin, and capers.
Combine them with the mayonnaise dressing.
Thin the mixture with tarragon vinegar.

Serve

Serve with cold meats or 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.

Capers + tarragontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together379 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Olive + caperstop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,688 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,547 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Olive + tarragontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,323 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Olive + vinegartop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,297 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Mayonnaise dressing: Forms the creamy base that holds the chopped pickles and capers together.
Capers: Add a sharp, briny bite that cuts through the richness of the mayonnaise.
Gherkin: Adds crunch and tangy acidity from the pickling brine.
Olives: Contribute salty, savoury flavour and a little texture.
Tarragon vinegar: Adds acidity and aromatic anise-like flavour, thinning the sauce.