Name: Sauce Piquaitte, for Cutlets, Roast Meat, &C.
Ingredients: 2 oz. butter; 1 small carrot, diced; 6 shallots, chopped; 1 small bunch of savory herbs (including parsley); 1 bay leaf; 2 slices of lean ham, chopped; 2 cloves; 6 peppercorns

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Sauce Piquaitte, for Cutlets, Roast Meat, &C.

Ingredients

Directions

Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.
Add the diced carrot and chopped shallots and sauté until softened.
Stir in the savory herbs, bay leaf, chopped ham, cloves, and peppercorns, then simmer for 10 minutes.
Strain the sauce before serving.

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.

Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,053 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,737 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,873 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Shallot + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,677 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Parsley + clovetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,768 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter: Melts to form a fat base that carries the aromatics and gives the sauce richness.
Shallots: Softened by sautéing, they add a mild, sweet onion-like flavor to the sauce.
Carrot: Softens during sautéing and adds gentle sweetness and body to the sauce.
Lean ham: Contributes savory, salty meat flavor as it simmers into the sauce.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, carrot, shallot, parsley, ham):

Capersfits better
Thymefits better
Tarragonfits better
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, carrot, shallot, parsley, 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.