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Sauce for Fish or Cold Meats

A vinaigrette sauce made with egg yolks, olive oil, mustard, vinegar, capers, gherkins, olives, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 624 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Sauce for Fish or Cold Meats

Ingredients

Directions

Make the emulsion

  1. In a bowl, beat the yolks of two raw eggs until well combined.

  2. Slowly add ½ cup of olive oil while continuously beating the mixture.

Season and finish

  1. Stir in ¼ teaspoon of white pepper, ¼ teaspoon of salt, and ¼ teaspoon of onion juice.

  2. Add 1 tablespoon of mustard and 3 tablespoons of vinegar gradually, mixing well.

  3. Incorporate 1 teaspoon of sugar, 1 tablespoon of chopped capers, and 1 tablespoon of chopped gherkins.

  4. Finally, fold in 6 stuffed olives.

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. Mustard + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together624 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Olive + caperstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,688 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Onion + caperstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,381 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 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 so the dressing stays smooth and thick.
Olive oil
Provides the fat that forms the body and rich texture of the dressing.
Mustard
Helps hold the oil and vinegar together and adds sharpness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the richness of the oil and yolks.
Capers
Add briny, sharp flavor that contrasts with the rich base.

The step that matters

Slowly add the olive oil while beating. Adding oil too fast before the yolks have absorbed it can break the emulsion, leaving separated oil instead of a smooth, thick dressing. Continuous beating lets tiny oil droplets disperse evenly in the yolk, which is what stabilizes the mixture.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, olive, onion, mustard, vinegar, sugar, capers):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, olive, onion, mustard, vinegar, sugar, capers. 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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