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Sauce

Espagnol or Brown Sauce

A brown sauce made by simmering veal, beef, and ham, then thickening with butter, flour, and egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 10,173 recipes mention both. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Espagnol or Brown Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the meat

  1. In a well-tinned stewpan, rub ¼ pound of butter over the bottom and place 3 slices of ham on it.

  2. Layer sliced veal and beef on top of the ham, then add ½ pint of water.

  3. Cover the stewpan tightly and place it on a hot part of the stove to cook for about 1.5 hours until the juices run down and turn brown.

  4. Lift the lid and scrape the bottom with an iron spoon to check progress.

  5. When brown enough, beat 1 egg white into 5 quarts of cold water and pour it over the meat.

  6. Bring to a boil quickly, skim well, and add 1 carrot, 2 onions, and 1 head of celery.

  7. Let it boil gently for 6 hours.

Make the roux

  1. Melt 2 pounds butter on a hot plate, strain off the pure butter, and leave the sediment behind.

  2. Strain the pure butter into a 2-quart stewpan and stir in enough flour to make a thick paste.

  3. Cook this mixture slowly on a cooler part of the hot plate for about 30 minutes, stirring continuously.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17,092 recipes

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

  4. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Beef + carrottop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together6,606 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches flavour and gives the roux a rich, smooth fat base.
Flour
Thickens the butter into a paste that gives the sauce body.
Veal and beef
Release juices and browned flavour that build the body of the stock.
Egg white
Gathers fine particles as it cooks, helping clarify the stock.
Carrot, onions and celery
Add sweetness and aromatic depth to the stock.

The step that matters

Cooking the roux slowly. Cooking flour in butter slowly and stirring constantly cooks out raw starch taste and builds colour gently; too much heat or neglect can scorch it and leave a bitter flavour.

Flavor stand-ins for the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, ham, veal, beef, egg, carrot, onion):

  1. Parsleyabout as good a flavor fit
  2. Celerythe original
  3. Thymeabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, ham, veal, beef, egg, carrot, onion. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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