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Sauce

Remoulade

A mayonnaise-like sauce made from hard‑boiled egg yolks, mustard, oil, vinegar, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 901 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Remoulade

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Pound the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs until smooth.

  2. Add the mustard, salt, and cayenne or white pepper, mixing well.

  3. Gradually mix in the oil and vinegar, working the mixture until smooth.

  4. If the sauce curdles, add the yolk of a raw egg gradually while stirring until smooth.

  5. For added flavor, mix in optional ingredients as desired.

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. Mustard + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together901 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Vinegar + tarragontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + caviartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together101 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. White pepper + tarragontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together139 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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 a smooth, rich base that emulsifies the oil into the sauce.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavor and helps stabilize the emulsion.
Oil
Provides fat that gives the sauce its body and creamy texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and cuts the richness of the oil.

The step that matters

Adding the oil and vinegar. Oil must be added gradually while the mixture is worked, so it emulsifies into the yolks. Adding it too fast can break the emulsion and make the sauce curdle.

“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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