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Sauce

Bordeaux Sauce

A vinegar-based sauce with tomatoes, cabbage, spices, and sugar, cooked until soft.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Turmeric and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,776 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Bordeaux Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Mix all ingredients together in a saucepan.

  2. Cook until soft, stirring often to prevent sticking.

Bottle and store

  1. Cork tightly in wide-mouthed bottles.

  2. Store in a dry, cool place.

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. Turmeric + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Turmeric + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Turmeric + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Provide the bulk and body of the sauce as they soften during cooking.
Cabbage
Adds bulk and a soft, mellow texture as it cooks down.
Cider vinegar
Supplies the acidity that gives the sauce its tang and helps preserve it.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the sharpness of the vinegar and tomatoes.

The step that matters

Stirring while the sauce cooks. Chopped vegetables and sugar in a vinegar mixture can scorch on the bottom of the pan as the liquid reduces. Stirring often keeps the mixture from sticking and burning, and spreads heat evenly so the vegetables soften uniformly.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cider, vinegar, turmeric, celery, mustard, ginger, pepper):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Broccolifits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, vinegar, turmeric, celery, mustard, ginger, pepper. 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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