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Cambridge Sauce

A thick sauce made from egg yolks, anchovies, capers, herbs, mustard, and oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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. Combine egg yolks, anchovies, capers, tarragon, chervil, chives, and bumet in a mortar.

  2. Pound the mixture well, then add the mustards, pepper, and salt.

  3. Moisten with salad oil and tarragon vinegar until the sauce is thick.

  4. Transfer the sauce to a tammy over a dish and rub it through to achieve a smooth consistency.

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. Chervil + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together370 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Capers + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together245 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

Hard-boiled egg yolks
Form the body of the sauce and thicken it when pounded with oil.
Anchovy fillets
Add a deep, salty savory flavour that underpins the sauce.
French capers
Add sharp, briny acidity that cuts through the rich yolks.
Salad oil
Adds richness and moisture, emulsifying with the yolks to thicken the sauce.
English mustard
Adds sharp heat and helps stabilise the emulsion.

The step that matters

Moisten with oil and vinegar until thick. Oil must be added slowly while pounding the yolks so it emulsifies into a thick sauce; adding it too fast can cause it to split and stay loose.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Mustardthe original
  4. Beetrootfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, anchovy, capers, tarragon, chervil, chive, 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.

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