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Taetabe Sauce

A creamy mayonnaise-based sauce with tarragon vinegar, mustard, gherkins, capers, parsley, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 624 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Taetabe Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Prepare a stiff mayonnaise.

  2. Mix in tarragon vinegar and English mustard.

  3. Stir in finely chopped gherkins, capers, and parsley.

  4. If the sauce is too thick, add a few drops of lemon juice.

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 + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together624 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Tarragon + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together379 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Tarragon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that brightens the rich mayonnaise and balances its fat.
English mustard
Adds pungent heat and sharpness that cut through the richness of the mayonnaise.
Gherkins
Provide tangy crunch and acidity that contrast with the smooth, rich base.
Capers
Add briny, sharp acidity that gives the sauce its characteristic savoury bite.

The step that matters

Prepare a stiff mayonnaise. Mayonnaise is an emulsion of oil and egg yolk. If it is too loose, the added vinegar, mustard and chopped ingredients thin it further and it can split or run. A stiff base holds its body once the other ingredients are stirred in.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Avocadofits less well
  4. Cherryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against tarragon, vinegar, mustard, capers, parsley. 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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