Skip to main content
Sauce

Espagnol or Brown Sauce

A thick brown sauce made from beef and veal stock, simmered and strained.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Beef and veal are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and 3,784 recipes mention both. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

Espagnol or Brown Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Chop the beef and veal finely, including bones.

  2. Place in a well-tinned stewpan and add enough water to cover.

  3. Bring to a boil, skimming off any foam.

Simmer and strain

  1. Add a little coarse sea salt and let simmer gently for 1.5 hours.

  2. Strain through a napkin and serve in small amounts.

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

  1. Beef + vealtop 11% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together3,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the main savoury meat flavour and, from its bones, body to the liquid.
Veal knuckle
Its bones and connective tissue release gelatin during simmering, giving the sauce body and mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Skimming off the foam at the boil. Foam carries coagulated proteins and impurities that would cloud the liquid and can taste bitter. Removing it early keeps the stock clear and clean-flavoured.

“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

Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)186 recipesCaper SauceCaper Sauce180 recipesBrown SauceBrown Sauce141 recipesDutch SauceDutch Sauce74 recipes