Name: Tartare Sauce
Ingredients: ½ cup mayonnaise; 1 tablespoon chopped parsley; 1 tablespoon chopped capers; 1 tablespoon chopped gherkins; 1 teaspoon mixed mustard

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

Tartare Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

In a bowl, combine the mayonnaise with the chopped parsley, capers, gherkins, and mixed mustard. 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 + mustardtop 1% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together624 recipes

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

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together1,550 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Parsley + mustardtop 8% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together2,588 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Mayonnaise: Provides the creamy base and fat that carries the flavour of the other ingredients.
Capers: Add a briny, sharp acidity that cuts through the richness of the mayonnaise.
Gherkins: Add crunch and a tangy, sour bite that balances the fat.
Mixed mustard: Adds sharpness and emulsifying character that lifts the sauce's flavour.

Flavor stand-ins for the parsley

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

Tarragonbetter flavor fit
Dillbetter flavor fit
Parsleythe original
Celeryabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against capers, mustard. 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.