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Sauce

Partridges, Cold, Sauce for

A sauce made from hard‑boiled egg yolk, anchovy, shallot, mustard, cayenne, oil, and vinegar, strained and served with cold partridges.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 859 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Partridges, Cold, Sauce for

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the egg

  1. Boil the egg until hard, then let it cool.

  2. Rub the yolk into a paste with a wooden spoon.

Make the sauce

  1. Add the anchovy, shallot, mustard, and cayenne, and blend thoroughly.

  2. Gradually add the oil and vinegar while mixing.

  3. Strain the sauce through muslin and serve.

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. Shallot + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together859 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

  5. Shallot + vinegartop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolk
Mashed into a paste, it thickens the sauce and gives it a rich body.
Oil
Added gradually, it emulsifies with the vinegar to give a smooth, creamy texture.
Vinegar
Adds sharpness that balances the richness of the yolk and oil.
Mustard
Its natural emulsifiers help hold the oil and vinegar together and add sharp flavour.
Anchovy
Adds savoury depth, rounding out the sauce's flavour.

The step that matters

Gradually add the oil and vinegar while mixing. Adding the oil too quickly or without constant mixing can make it separate instead of forming a smooth emulsion. Slow addition lets the yolk and mustard bind the liquids into a stable, creamy sauce.

Swap the shallot

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

  1. Horseradishfits about as well
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Lettucefits about as well
  4. Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, anchovy, mustard, pepper, vinegar. 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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