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Sauce

Cardinal Sauce for Fillets of Soles

A sauce made with live spawn, Espagnol sauce, anchovy sauce, sherry, lemon juice, capers, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and anchovy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Cardinal Sauce for Fillets of Soles

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Rub the live spawn through a fine sieve with the water.

  2. Bring the Espagnol sauce to a boil.

  3. Add the prepared spawn to the boiling sauce.

  4. Stir in the anchovy sauce, sherry, and lemon juice.

  5. Boil until the sauce reduces to its original consistency.

  6. Strain the sauce through a fine strainer.

  7. Add the capers and cayenne pepper.

  8. Keep the sauce warm in a suitable pan.

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. Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Lemon + caperstop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,222 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Anchovy + caperstop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together473 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  5. Sauce + caperstop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together678 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Live spawn
Its puréed body thickens and gives the sauce a rich, earthy flavour.
Espagnol sauce
Serves as the base, providing body and the main structure of the sauce.
Anchovy sauce
Adds a salty, savoury depth that rounds out the sauce.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aromatic richness that brightens the reduced sauce.

The step that matters

Boil until the sauce reduces to its original consistency. Boiling evaporates water and concentrates the sauce, so it must be reduced back to the intended thickness. Stopping early leaves it thin, while overboiling makes it too thick and salty.

“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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