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Tartar Sauce

A sauce made from egg yolks, mustard, vinegar, olive oil, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Tartar Sauce

Why it works: Tarragon and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 602 recipes mention both. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Tartar Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Break the yolks into a bowl and add the salt and mustard.

  2. Stir in 1 tablespoon of olive oil, then alternate with 1 tablespoon of the mixed vinegars, stirring well until the sauce reaches the right consistency.

  3. Mix gradually and finally add the chopped shallots or pickles.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Tarragon + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together602 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Mustard + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together859 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Mustard + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together901 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Tarragon + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify the oil and vinegar to form a thick, smooth sauce.
Olive oil
Provides fat that gives the sauce its rich body and mouthfeel.
Mustard
Helps hold the oil and vinegar together as an emulsion and adds sharpness.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity and a sharp, herbal aroma to balance the rich oil.

The step that matters

Adding the oil and vinegar. Oil must be added slowly while stirring, alternating with vinegar, so the yolks can emulsify it. Adding too much at once can break the sauce into a greasy, separated mixture.

Flavor stand-ins for the shallot

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

  1. Lettuceabout as good a flavor fit
  2. Shallotthe original
  3. Horseradishabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Chiveabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, mustard, olive, tarragon, vinegar, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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