Name: Tartar Sauce
Ingredients: 1 cup mayonnaise; 2 gherkins, chopped; 1 tablespoon capers, chopped; parsley, chopped (to taste); 3 olives, chopped; ¼ teaspoon mustard

Why it works: Capers and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 624 recipes mention both. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Tartar Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

Prepare the mayonnaise and mix in the mustard.
Add the chopped gherkins, capers, parsley, and olives.
Adjust the amount of parsley for color.

Finish

Feel free to add or omit ingredients like chopped green peppers, watercress, or onion.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Capers + mustardtop 1% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together624 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Capers + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together1,550 recipes

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

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together1,688 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Parsley + olivetop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together9,649 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Olive + mustardtop 8% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together5,950 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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 all the other flavors.
Gherkins: Add tangy acidity and a crisp, chopped texture.
Capers: Contribute a sharp, briny flavor that cuts through the richness.
Olives: Add salty, savory depth and extra texture.
Mustard: Adds sharpness and helps emulsify the sauce for a smooth finish.

Flavor stand-ins for the parsley

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

Tarragonbetter flavor fit
Dillabout as good a flavor fit
Parsleythe original
Thymeabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against capers, olive, mustard. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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.