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Ravigote Sauce

A cold sauce made with finely chopped herbs, capers, anchovies, egg yolk, oil, vinegar, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Ravigote Sauce

Why it works: Capers and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 624 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Ravigote Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the herbs, capers, and anchovies very small.

  2. In a bowl, combine the chopped ingredients with the egg yolk.

Make the sauce

  1. Slowly add oil, stirring gently as you would for mayonnaise.

  2. Add vinegar to taste, pouring it in gently to avoid breaking the sauce.

  3. Stir in enough mustard to make the sauce fairly hot.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Capers + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together624 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Capers + vinegartop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,453 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Capers + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,311 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  5. Egg + mustardtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,210 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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 binds the sauce into a smooth, thick texture.
Oil
Forms the body of the sauce, giving richness and a creamy texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the rich oil.
Mustard
Adds heat and sharpness, and helps stabilise the emulsion.
Capers
Contribute briny, acidic flavour that cuts through the richness.
Anchovies
Add savoury depth and umami to the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the oil. Oil must be added slowly while stirring gently, so the egg yolk can emulsify it into the sauce. Adding it too fast or stirring too hard can cause the sauce to split and separate.

Swap the capers

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

  1. Tarragonfits about as well
  2. Capersthe original
  3. Dillfits less well
  4. Allspicefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, vinegar, mustard. 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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