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Sauce

Cambridge Sauce

A sauce made with olive oil, tarragon vinegar, anchovies, capers, mustard, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 ↓

Cambridge Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Pound all ingredients except the parsley together until well combined.

  2. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve.

  3. If too thick, gradually add more olive oil and vinegar until it resembles mayonnaise.

  4. Stir in the parsley and refrigerate until needed.

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 + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together624 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Tarragon + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together379 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Tarragon + parsleytop 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

Hard-boiled egg yolks
Emulsify the oil and vinegar and give the sauce its thick, creamy body.
Olive oil
Adds fat and richness, building a mayonnaise-like texture when added gradually.
Anchovies
Contribute deep savoury flavour that rounds out the sauce.
French mustard
Adds sharpness and helps stabilise the emulsion.
Tarragon vinegar
Provides acidity and the characteristic tarragon aroma.

The step that matters

Adding the olive oil and vinegar. Oil must be added gradually to the pounded yolks so it emulsifies rather than separating. Adding it too quickly breaks the sauce into a greasy, loose mixture that will not thicken like mayonnaise.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Dillfits about as well
  3. Fennelfits less well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, tarragon, vinegar, egg, capers, mustard, chervil. 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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