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Sauce

Piquant Sauce

A sauce made with shallot, tarragon vinegar, vinegar, cream, egg yolks, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 602 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Piquant Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Finely chop the shallot.

  2. Combine the vinegars and shallot in a saucepan.

Make the sauce

  1. Add the cream and heat gently.

  2. Whisk in the egg yolks and butter until smooth.

  3. Serve warm.

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. Shallot + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together602 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Shallot + vinegartop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Shallot + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce and give it a smooth, rich texture as they set with gentle heat.
Butter
Adds fat for a silky, glossy finish and rounder mouthfeel.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, softening the sharpness of the vinegar.
Tarragon vinegar
Supplies the sharp, aromatic acidity that gives the sauce its piquant character.

The step that matters

Whisk in the egg yolks and butter. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently but can scramble if the sauce gets too hot, leaving a grainy texture. Keep the heat low and whisk constantly so the yolks emulsify smoothly with the butter.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tarragon, vinegar, cream, egg, butter):

  1. Shallotthe original
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Mustardfits about as well
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against tarragon, vinegar, cream, egg, butter. 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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