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Sauce

Sauce for Cold Fowl or Partridge

A sauce made from egg yolks, anchovy, oil, vinegar, shallot, cayenne pepper, mustard, and optional cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 859 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Sauce for Cold Fowl or Partridge

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a mortar, pound the hard-boiled egg yolks, anchovy, oil, vinegar, shallot, cayenne pepper, and mustard until smooth.

  2. Strain the mixture to remove solids.

  3. Adjust seasoning with coarse sea salt.

  4. For a richer sauce, top with common or clotted cream before serving.

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. Shallot + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together859 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + shallottop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,374 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

Hard-boiled egg yolks
Their fat and fine texture give the sauce body and a smooth, creamy base.
Anchovy
Adds savory depth, so the sauce tastes richer without any fishy flavor showing through.
Oil
Carries fat into the emulsion, giving the sauce a smooth, rich mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the richness of the yolks and oil.
Mustard
Its natural emulsifiers help hold the oil and yolks together and add sharp flavor.

The step that matters

Pound until smooth. Egg yolk and oil only form a stable, smooth sauce when they are worked together thoroughly. Stopping early leaves a grainy or separated texture, and the shallot and anchovy must be fully broken down so they don't leave pieces behind.

Swap the shallot

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Lettucefits about as well
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, anchovy, vinegar, pepper, mustard, cream. 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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