Name: Tartare Sauce
Ingredients: 1 cup mayonnaise; 1 tablespoon capers; 1 tablespoon chopped gherkins; 1 teaspoon chopped parsley; 1 teaspoon chervil; 1 tablespoon white vinegar

Why it works: Capers and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 135 recipes mention both. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Tartare Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

In a bowl, combine the mayonnaise, capers, gherkins, parsley, chervil, and white vinegar.
Mix well until all ingredients are evenly incorporated.

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.

Capers + cherviltop 1% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together135 recipes

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

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together1,550 recipes

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

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together774 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Chervil + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together561 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Parsley + vinegartop 16% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together6,477 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

Mayonnaise: Forms the creamy base and provides fat for a rich, smooth texture.
Capers: Add briny, tangy bursts of flavor that cut through the richness.
Gherkins: Contribute crunch and sharp, sour flavor.
White vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the fat.

Flavor stand-ins for the parsley

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

Tarragonbetter flavor fit
Parsleythe original
Dillabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against capers, chervil, vinegar. 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.