Skip to main content
Drink

Hot Tartar Sauce

A tartar sauce made with vinegar, onion, butter, egg yolks, olive oil, salt, cayenne pepper, and pickled gherkin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Onion and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,779 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Hot Tartar Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce base

  1. Boil the onion in the vinegar for a few minutes.

  2. Add the butter and egg yolks, then beat until thick, about 1 minute.

Finish the sauce

  1. Remove from heat and gradually beat in the olive oil.

  2. Add salt, cayenne, and minced gherkin.

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. Onion + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,779 recipes

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

  2. Vinegar + olivetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Olive + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + oniontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify and thicken the sauce as they set with gentle heat.
Olive oil
Adds richness and body as it is beaten into the emulsion.
Butter
Adds fat and smoothness, helping the yolks thicken evenly.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that cuts the richness of the yolks and fat.

The step that matters

Beat the yolks until thick over heat. Egg yolks thicken as their proteins set, but too much heat can scramble them. Beating steadily keeps the sauce smooth and thick rather than grainy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, butter, olive, pepper, egg):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, butter, olive, pepper, egg. 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.

You might also like

Raspberry VinegarRaspberry Vinegar214 recipesSugar VinegarSugar Vinegar20 recipesVegetable SoupVegetable Soup350 recipesBrown Coffee with EggBrown Coffee with Egg175 recipes