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Sauce

Remoulade

A sauce made from hard‑boiled egg yolks, mustard, salt, pepper, oil, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Remoulade

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Pound the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs very smoothly.

  2. Add the mustard, salt, and cayenne or white pepper, mixing well.

  3. Gradually mix in the oil and vinegar, working the mixture together until smooth.

  4. If the sauce curdles, add the yolk of a raw egg gradually to smooth it out.

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. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. White pepper + vinegartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + white peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,312 recipes

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

  4. Mustard + white peppertop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together618 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  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

Hard-boiled egg yolks
Form the smooth emulsifying base that holds the sauce together.
Mustard
Helps stabilize the emulsion and adds sharp flavor.
Oil
Provides richness and body as it is blended into the yolks.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the oil.

The step that matters

Adding the oil and vinegar gradually. Oil must be dispersed slowly into the yolk mixture so droplets are held in suspension. Adding it too fast breaks the emulsion, causing the sauce to curdle or separate.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

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