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Sauce

Bemoulade Sauce

A cold sauce of egg yolk and salad oil flavoured with blanched fresh herbs, vinegar, mustard and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,563 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Bemoulade Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Blanch the tarragon, parsley, burnet, and chives, then drain and chop them finely.

Make the sauce

  1. In a bowl, combine the egg yolk, salt, and pepper; stir well with a wooden spoon.

  2. Gradually mix in the salad oil, adding a few drops of tarragon vinegar at intervals.

  3. Add about 2 tablespoons of vinegar to the oil mixture.

  4. Once the sauce is finished, stir in the mustard, sugar, and chopped herbs.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Tarragon + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together589 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Chive + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together587 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolk
Acts as an emulsifier, holding the oil and vinegar together as a smooth sauce.
Salad oil
Provides the fat that gives the sauce its rich, smooth body.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the richness of the oil.
Made mustard
Helps stabilise the emulsion and adds a sharp, savoury bite.
Tarragon, parsley, burnet, and chives
Supply fresh herbal aroma and flavour throughout the sauce.

The step that matters

Gradually mix in the salad oil. The egg yolk can only suspend the oil in tiny droplets if the oil is added slowly. Pouring too quickly breaks the emulsion, so the sauce separates and looks greasy instead of thick and smooth.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tarragon, chive, egg, pepper, vinegar, mustard, sugar):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Dillfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Fennelfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against tarragon, chive, egg, pepper, vinegar, mustard, sugar. 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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