Skip to main content
Sauce

Remoulade Sauce

A sauce made from anchovies, tarragon, egg yolks, sauce tournee, mustard, and oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Tarragon and mustard 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 Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Pound the anchovies and tarragon very fine in a mortar.

  2. Add the hard-boiled egg yolks and blend well.

  3. Incorporate 1-2 tablespoons of sauce tournee.

  4. Gradually mix in the same quantity of mustard and oil, adding a little at a time.

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 + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together901 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Sauce + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,120 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Tarragon + eggtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,789 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  5. Egg + mustardtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,210 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Anchovies
Provide a salty, savory depth that defines the sauce's character.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Emulsify with the oil and mustard to give the sauce a thick, smooth body.
Mustard
Adds sharpness and helps stabilize the emulsion.
Oil
Forms the fat base of the emulsion, giving richness and smoothness.

The step that matters

Gradually mix in the mustard and oil. Adding the oil slowly, a little at a time, lets the egg yolk emulsify it into a stable sauce. Adding it too fast can cause it to break and separate.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against tarragon, egg, 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.

You might also like

Mixed MustardMixed Mustard9 recipesWine Sauce (for stewed fruit)Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)186 recipesCaper SauceCaper Sauce180 recipesBrown SauceBrown Sauce141 recipes