Name: Sauce Tartare
Ingredients: ½ cup Mayonnaise Sauce; 2 teaspoons French Mustard; 2 teaspoons chopped parsley; 1 teaspoon finely chopped gherkins; 1 teaspoon capers; 1 teaspoon chervil; ½ teaspoon chopped tarragon leaves; optional: finely chopped shallots; optional: anchovy essence

Why it works: Capers and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 405 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Sauce Tartare

Ingredients

Directions

In a bowl, combine the Mayonnaise Sauce with French Mustard and chopped parsley.
Add the finely chopped gherkins, capers, chervil, and chopped tarragon leaves.
If desired, mix in finely chopped shallots and anchovy essence.

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.

Capers + shallottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together405 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together824 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Capers + cherviltop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together135 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together266 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together624 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Mayonnaise sauce: Forms the creamy base that carries all the other flavourings.
French mustard: Adds sharp tang and helps emulsify and stabilise the sauce.
Gherkins: Provide sharp acidity and a crisp texture against the creamy base.
Capers: Add briny acidity and a pleasant sharp bite.

“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.