Why it works: Mustard and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 624 recipes mention both. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
Tartare Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
In a bowl, beat together the egg yolks and oil until well combined.
Add the vinegar, mustard, sugar, capers, cucumber pickles, onion juice, and pepper, then mix thoroughly until the sauce is smooth.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Mustard + caperstop 1% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together624 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Capers + cucumbertop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together303 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Mustard + cucumbertop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together2,281 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together9,259 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Capers + oniontop 7% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together1,381 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
- Egg yolks
- Emulsify the oil into the sauce, giving it a thick, creamy body.
- Oil
- Provides the fat that makes up most of the sauce's rich texture.
- Vinegar
- Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and balances the rich oil and yolks.
- Mustard
- Contributes sharpness and helps stabilize the emulsion.
- Capers
- Add briny, sour notes that give the sauce its characteristic tang.
The step that matters
Beat the egg yolks and oil until well combined. Oil must be incorporated gradually into the yolks so they form a stable emulsion; adding it too fast can cause the sauce to break and separate.
Flavor stand-ins for the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, vinegar, mustard, sugar, capers, cucumber, pepper):
- Horseradishbetter flavor fit
- Shallotbetter flavor fit
- Lettucebetter flavor fit
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, vinegar, mustard, sugar, capers, cucumber, 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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