Name: Sauce Tartare
Ingredients: ½ cup Mayonnaise sauce; 2 teaspoons chopped gherkins; 1 teaspoon chopped capers; a few drops of lemon juice; 1 teaspoon chopped parsley; ½ teaspoon chopped tarragon; ½ teaspoon chopped chervil

Why it works: Tarragon and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 824 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Sauce Tartare

Ingredients

Directions

In a bowl, combine the mayonnaise, gherkins, capers, and lemon juice, and mix well.
Add the parsley, tarragon, and chervil.
Stir until all ingredients are evenly 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.

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.

Tarragon + cherviltop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together824 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Capers + cherviltop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together135 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Capers + tarragontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together379 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,563 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Mayonnaise sauce: Forms the creamy base that carries all the other flavours and gives the sauce its body.
Gherkins: Add acidity and a crisp, tangy bite that cuts through the richness of the mayonnaise.
Capers: Contribute a briny, sharp acidity that adds savoury depth.
Parsley: Adds fresh, green herbal flavour and aroma.
Tarragon: Adds a distinctive anise-like aroma that gives the sauce its characteristic flavour.
Chervil: Adds a delicate, mild herbal aroma that brightens the sauce.

“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.