Name: Tartare Sauce
Ingredients: ½ pint mayonnaise dressing; 2 teaspoons chopped capers; 2 teaspoons chopped olives; 1 teaspoon chopped cucumber pickles; 1 teaspoon chopped parsley

Why it works: Capers and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,550 recipes mention both. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Tartare Sauce

Ingredients

½ pint mayonnaise dressing
2 teaspoons chopped capers
2 teaspoons chopped olives
1 teaspoon chopped cucumber pickles
1 teaspoon chopped parsley

Directions

In a bowl, combine the mayonnaise dressing, capers, olives, cucumber pickles, and parsley. Mix well until all ingredients are evenly combined.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together1,550 recipes

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

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together303 recipes

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

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together1,688 recipes

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

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together9,649 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Olive + cucumbertop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together3,611 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Mayonnaise dressing: Provides the creamy base and moisture that binds the sauce together.
Capers: Adds a sharp, briny acidity that cuts through the richness of the dressing.
Olives: Contributes salty, briny flavour and a slightly firm texture.
Cucumber pickles: Adds acidity and a crisp, tangy bite.

Flavor stand-ins for the cucumber

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

Shallotbetter flavor fit
Kalebetter flavor fit
Chivebetter flavor fit
Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against capers, olive, parsley. 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.