Name: Tartar Sauce
Ingredients: ½ pint mayonnaise dressing; 1 teaspoon dry mustard; 1 tablespoon chopped parsley; 1 teaspoon finely chopped cucumber pickles; a few drops of onion juice

Why it works: Mustard and cucumber match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 2,281 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tartar Sauce

Ingredients

½ pint mayonnaise dressing
1 teaspoon dry mustard
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
1 teaspoon finely chopped cucumber pickles
a few drops of onion juice

Directions

In a bowl, combine the mayonnaise and dry mustard, mixing until smooth.
Add the chopped parsley, cucumber pickles, and onion juice.
Stir well to combine and serve with cold meats or fish.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Mustard + cucumbertop 3% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together2,281 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together9,259 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Parsley + cucumbertop 7% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together1,564 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Mustard + parsleytop 8% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together2,588 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Cucumber + oniontop 8% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together6,050 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mayonnaise dressing: Provides the creamy base and rich fat that carries the other flavours.
Dry mustard: Adds sharp, pungent flavour that cuts through the richness of the mayonnaise.
Cucumber pickles: Contribute acidity and crunch that brighten the sauce.

Flavor stand-ins for the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mustard, cucumber, onion):

Capersbetter flavor fit
Garlicbetter flavor fit
Tarragonbetter flavor fit
Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, cucumber, onion. 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.