Name: Tartar Sauce
Ingredients: 2 hard-boiled eggs; 2 tablespoons gherkins, chopped; 2 tablespoons pickles, chopped; 2 teaspoons mustard

Why it works: Egg and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 28% of all ingredient pairs, and 9,210 recipes mention both. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Tartar Sauce

Ingredients

2 hard-boiled eggs
2 tablespoons gherkins, chopped
2 tablespoons pickles, chopped
2 teaspoons mustard

Directions

Chop the hard-boiled eggs, gherkins, and pickles.
In a bowl, combine the chopped eggs, gherkins, pickles, and mustard.
Mix well until all ingredients are 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.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Egg + mustardtop 28% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned 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 eggs: Add richness and body, giving the sauce a thick, creamy texture.
Gherkins: Add acidity and crunch that cut through the richness of the eggs.
Pickles: Add acidity and crunch that brighten the sauce.
Mustard: Adds sharp flavour and helps bind the ingredients together.

“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.