Name: Sauce Tartare
Ingredients: 1 cup mayonnaise dressing; 2 tablespoons chopped olives; 2 tablespoons chopped pickles; ¼ teaspoon capers; 1 tablespoon finely chopped parsley; Few drops onion juice

Why it works: Capers and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,550 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Sauce Tartare

Ingredients

1 cup mayonnaise dressing
2 tablespoons chopped olives
2 tablespoons chopped pickles
¼ teaspoon capers
1 tablespoon finely chopped parsley
Few drops onion juice

Directions

Add the chopped olives, pickles, capers, parsley, and onion juice to the mayonnaise dressing.
Mix well and serve with fish or fish cutlets.

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.

Capers + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,550 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Olive + caperstop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,688 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Olive + parsleytop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,649 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Capers + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,381 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Olive + oniontop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together29,779 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Mayonnaise dressing: Forms the creamy base, providing body, richness and a smooth texture that holds the other ingredients.
Chopped pickles: Add tangy acidity and a crisp bite that cuts through the richness of the dressing.
Chopped olives: Contribute briny, savoury flavour and a slight saltiness to the sauce.
Capers: Add a sharp, briny punch that brightens the sauce and balances its richness.
Chopped parsley: Adds a fresh, herbal aroma and a light green flavour.
Onion juice: Adds a sharp, aromatic onion flavour in small amounts.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (olive, capers, parsley):

Shallotbetter flavor fit
Kalebetter flavor fit
Chivebetter flavor fit
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, capers, parsley. 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.