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Sauce

Tarragon Sauce

A sauce made with tarragon vinegar, butter, tarragon, chervil, and glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Tarragon Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Reduce 2 tablespoons of tarragon vinegar to 1 tablespoon in a saucepan.

  2. Add 6 tablespoons of good butter sauce, chopped tarragon, and chopped chervil, then mix well and taste.

  3. If not strong enough, add a small bit of glaze and a little more tarragon vinegar.

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. Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Vinegar + cherviltop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together561 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Tarragon + saucetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together566 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Tarragon vinegar
Provides the sharp, acidic tarragon flavour that defines the sauce, concentrated by reduction.
Butter sauce
Forms the rich, creamy base of the sauce and carries the herb flavour.
Glaze
Adds concentrated savoury depth and body if the sauce needs more strength.

The step that matters

Reducing the tarragon vinegar. Simmering concentrates the vinegar's acidity and aroma as water evaporates. Reducing it too far makes the sauce overly sharp, while stopping too early leaves it weak and thin. Tasting after combining allows adjustment.

Swap the chervil

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tarragon, vinegar, butter, sauce):

  1. Chervilthe original
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Parsleyfits less well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against tarragon, vinegar, butter, sauce. 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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