Name: Orange Gravy Sauce, for Game and Wild Fowl
Ingredients: 1 pint clear veal broth; 1 onion; 12 leaves basil; large piece of orange or lemon peel; juice of 1 Seville orange or lemon; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 teaspoon pepper; ⅓ cup Port wine; cayenne pepper to taste

Why it works: Basil and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,294 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Orange Gravy Sauce, for Game and Wild Fowl

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

In a saucepan, combine veal broth, onion, basil, and orange or lemon peel.
Boil slowly for 10 minutes, then strain the mixture.
Return the strained liquid to the saucepan.

Finish and serve

Add the juice of the Seville orange or lemon, salt, pepper, and Port wine.
Serve hot, adding cayenne if desired.

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.

Basil + peppertop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,294 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
Basil + orangetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together265 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Orange + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,402 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + basiltop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,600 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal broth: Forms the savory base of the sauce and carries the flavors of the other ingredients.
Port wine: Adds sweetness and depth of flavor to the sauce.
Orange or lemon juice: Adds acidity and bright citrus flavor that balances the richness of the broth.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, onion, basil, pepper, port wine):

Lemonfits better
Limefits better
Cherryfits better
Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, onion, basil, pepper, port wine. 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.