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Tartare Sauce

A creamy sauce made with raw egg yolks, olive oil, vinegar, mustard, sugar, pepper, salt, onion juice, capers, and cucumber pickle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Tartare Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, combine the egg yolks and olive oil, whisking until smooth.

  2. Add the vinegar, mustard, sugar, pepper, salt, and onion juice, mixing well.

  3. Fold in the chopped capers and cucumber pickle last.

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. Olive + caperstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,688 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  4. Onion + caperstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,381 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 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 yolks
Emulsify the oil and vinegar into a thick, smooth sauce.
Olive oil
Provides fat for a rich, silky texture as it emulsifies with the yolks.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and balances the richness of the oil.
Prepared mustard
Helps stabilize the emulsion and adds sharp, tangy flavor.
Capers
Add briny, sharp bursts of flavor throughout the sauce.

The step that matters

Whisking the egg yolks and olive oil until smooth. Yolks must be whisked with the oil gradually so they form a stable emulsion. Adding oil too fast can cause the sauce to separate or break.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, olive, vinegar, mustard, sugar, pepper, capers. 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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