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Sauce

Peach Olive Sauce, or Soubis

A sauce made by pureeing onions with ham, spices, and Bechamel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Peach Olive Sauce, or Soubis

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

  1. Peel the onions and cut them in half.

  2. Place them in a stewpan and cover with just enough water.

  3. Add the bay leaf, ham, cayenne, and mace.

  4. Keep the lid tightly closed and simmer until tender.

  5. Remove the onions and drain thoroughly.

  6. Rub them through a sieve with a wooden spoon.

Finish the sauce

  1. Combine the onion puree with 1 pint of Bechamel sauce.

  2. Stir over heat until it boils, then serve.

  3. Adjust seasoning to taste if necessary.

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. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  2. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Mace + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

  4. Onion + hamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,159 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Sauce + oniontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Soften and break down into a smooth puree that gives the sauce its body and sweetness.
Bechamel sauce
Provides the creamy base that carries the onion puree and gives the sauce its richness.
Ham
Adds savoury, smoky depth to the water the onions simmer in.

The step that matters

Keep the lid tightly closed while simmering. A tight lid traps steam so the onions cook gently and evenly in little liquid. Lifting the lid lets steam escape and can lead to scorching or uneven softening.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, pepper, onion, ham):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, pepper, onion, ham. 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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