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Mayonnaise Sauce

A mayonnaise-based sauce flavored with garden cress, burnet, tarragon, chervil, anchovies, capers, gherkins, mustard, and optional ravigote.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Mayonnaise Sauce

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 ↓

Mayonnaise Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the herbs and mix-ins

  1. Finely mince the garden cress, burnet, tarragon, and chervil, then mix the minced herbs together.

  2. Finely mince the eschalots, capers, and gherkins.

  3. Clean the anchovies and soak them in hot water for 1 minute.

  4. Remove the heads and backbones from the anchovies and chop them.

  5. Mix the chopped anchovies with the minced ingredients and French mustard.

Combine with the mayonnaise

  1. Stir the herb mixture into the mayonnaise sauce.

  2. If using, add 2 tablespoons of ravigote for flavor.

  3. Stir this mixture into the mayonnaise sauce.

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 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. Garden cress + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Chervil + caperstop 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. Garden cress + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8 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

Mayonnaise sauce
Forms the creamy base that carries all the herbs and flavorings.
Anchovies
Add a salty, savoury depth that rounds out the herbs.
Eschalots
Contribute a mild, sharp onion flavour to the sauce.
Capers
Add a sharp, briny bite that cuts through the richness of the mayonnaise.
Gherkins
Add acidity and a crisp, tangy note.
French mustard
Adds sharpness and helps season the sauce.

The step that matters

Soaking the anchovies. Soaking briefly in hot water softens and mellows the anchovies and rinses off excess salt. Soaking too long can leave them watery and diluted, weakening the sauce's savoury flavour.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (garden cress, tarragon, chervil, capers, sauce):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against garden cress, tarragon, chervil, capers, 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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