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Tartare Sauce

A creamy sauce made with mayonnaise, egg yolks, mustard, lemon juice, tarragon vinegar, olive oil, capers, chives, parsley, gherkins, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 624 recipes mention both. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Tartare Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce base

  1. Make ½ cup of mayonnaise using the yolk of a raw egg and the yolk of a hard-boiled egg.

  2. Blend in ½ cup of olive oil.

  3. Add 2 teaspoons of French mustard.

  4. Add 1 teaspoon of lemon juice.

  5. Add 1 tablespoon of tarragon vinegar.

  6. Season with salt and pepper.

Add the herbs and capers

  1. Mince and pound 1 tablespoon each of chopped capers, chives, and ½ tablespoon each of parsley and gherkins until fine.

  2. Stir well.

Finish and serve

  1. Press through a sieve.

  2. Serve with jellied fish, fried fish, or salads.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Mustard + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together624 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Tarragon + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together379 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Mustard + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together901 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Lemon + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Olive + caperstop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,688 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
Forms the creamy base that gives the sauce its body and smooth, rich texture.
Egg yolks
Act as emulsifiers, holding the oil and vinegar together in a stable, thick sauce.
Olive oil
Supplies fat for richness and body, and forms the emulsion with the yolks.
French mustard
Adds sharpness and helps stabilise the emulsion, so the sauce stays smooth.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the richness of the oil.
Capers
Add a briny, sharp flavour that cuts through the richness of the sauce.

The step that matters

Blend in the olive oil. Oil added too quickly can overwhelm the yolks and split the sauce. Adding it slowly while mixing lets the yolk lecithin emulsify the oil into fine droplets, giving a thick, stable texture.

Flavor stand-ins for the lemon

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

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Limeabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Avocadoabout as good a flavor fit

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

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