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Sauce

Remoulade Sauce

A sauce made with herbs, egg yolk, oil, vinegar, mustard, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,563 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Remoulade Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the herbs

  1. Blanch the tarragon, parsley, burnet, and chives; drain and chop finely.

Make the sauce

  1. In a bowl, combine the egg yolk, salt, and pepper; stir well with a wooden spoon.

  2. Gradually work in the salad oil, adding a few drops of tarragon vinegar at intervals.

  3. Add about 2 tablespoons of vinegar to the oil mixture.

  4. Once finished, stir in the mustard, castor sugar, and chopped herbs.

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. Tarragon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Tarragon + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together901 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Tarragon + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together589 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Chive + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together587 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolk
Emulsifies the oil and vinegar, so the sauce thickens into a smooth, stable emulsion.
Salad oil
Forms the body of the sauce, giving richness and a creamy texture when emulsified.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the richness of the oil.
Made mustard
Adds sharp flavour and helps stabilise the emulsion.

The step that matters

Gradually work in the salad oil. Adding the oil slowly, a little at a time, lets the egg yolk coat each droplet and form a stable emulsion. Adding it too fast can cause the sauce to split and turn oily.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Dillfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Fennelfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against tarragon, chive, egg, pepper, vinegar, mustard, sugar. 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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