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Espagnole

A rich brown sauce made from veal knuckles, pheasant or partridges, carrots, onions, Madeira wine, jelly, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,873 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Espagnole

Ingredients

Directions

Start the stock

  1. Combine veal knuckles, pheasant or partridges, veal ham, carrots, and onions in a large pot.

  2. Add the Madeira wine and ladleful of jelly.

  3. Place the pot over high heat.

  4. Lower the heat and let it simmer.

Strain the liquid

  1. Remove the pot from heat.

  2. Let it sit for 10 minutes.

  3. Strain the liquid.

Make the sauce

  1. Use the strained liquid to moisten the Espagnole sauce.

  2. Skim the sauce.

  3. Prepare a roux with the liquid.

  4. Pour the roux over the meat.

  5. Add mushrooms, parsley, chives, shallots, thyme, and bay leaf.

  6. Reduce the heat.

  7. Let it simmer gently until the meat is cooked.

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. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,796 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

  5. Clove + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,663 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal knuckles
Their collagen breaks down during long simmering into gelatin, giving the sauce body.
Jelly
Adds concentrated gelatin, giving the liquid richness and a fuller mouthfeel.
Madeira wine
Adds aromatic depth, with some sweetness and acidity that balance the rich meat flavors.
Carrots
Release natural sugars during cooking, adding sweetness and a rounded aromatic base.
Onions
Caramelize slowly, adding sweetness and aromatic depth to the stock.
Mushrooms
Add earthy, savory flavor that deepens the overall sauce.

The step that matters

Let it simmer gently, never boil. A hard boil churns fat and impurities into the liquid, making the stock cloudy and greasy. A gentle simmer lets them rise so they can be skimmed away, leaving a clearer, cleaner sauce.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pheasant, ham, carrot, onion, madeira wine, mushroom):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pheasant, ham, carrot, onion, madeira wine, mushroom. 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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