Skip to main content
Sauce

Provencals Sauce

A sauce made from egg yolks, anchovies, capers, herbs, garlic, oil, vinegar, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Provencals Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Pound the egg yolks with anchovies, capers, tarragon, chervil, burnet, parsley, garlic, pepper, and salt.

  2. Add salad oil and tarragon vinegar, then rub through a fine sieve with a wooden spoon.

  3. Stir in a little lemon juice and serve.

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. Tarragon + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together824 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Capers + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together135 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Capers + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together379 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Tarragon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Capers + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,550 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify with the oil and thicken the sauce into a smooth, creamy texture.
Salad oil
Adds richness and body, forming a smooth emulsion with the egg yolks.
Anchovies
Contribute a deep, savory saltiness that rounds out the sauce.
Capers
Add a sharp, briny bite that cuts through the richness of the oil.
Tarragon vinegar
Provides acidity and a bright aroma that balances the rich yolks and oil.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma and sharpness to the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the oil. The oil must be added gradually, or the emulsion of yolks and oil may break and the sauce will separate and look greasy rather than smooth.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, capers, tarragon, chervil, parsley, garlic, pepper):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, capers, tarragon, chervil, parsley, garlic, pepper. 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.

You might also like

Hot Lemon Cream SauceHot Lemon Cream Sauce11 recipesWine Sauce (for stewed fruit)Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)186 recipesCaper SauceCaper Sauce180 recipesBrown SauceBrown Sauce141 recipes