Skip to main content
Sauce

Bordeaux Sauce

A fermented cabbage and tomato sauce with spices, sugar, vinegar, and salt, boiled and jarred.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Bordeaux Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine all ingredients in a large pot.

  2. Bring to a boil and cook for 20 minutes.

  3. Pour into sterilized jars and seal.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Turmeric + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Turmeric + allspicetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 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

Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the relish and gives it a crisp, chunky texture.
Green tomatoes
Adds acidity and body, helping the relish thicken as it cooks.
Onions
Contributes savoury flavour and bulk to the cooked relish.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that gives the sauce its tang and helps preserve it.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the vinegar and tomatoes.
White mustard seed
Contributes pungent, sharp flavour that mellows during cooking.

The step that matters

Bring to a boil and cook for 20 minutes. The mixture must simmer long enough for the vegetables to soften and the vinegar and sugar to blend. Stopping early leaves raw, crunchy vegetables and a weaker, less stable preserve.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, onion, pepper, turmeric, allspice, clove, mustard):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Cauliflowerfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, onion, pepper, turmeric, allspice, clove, mustard. 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.

You might also like

Mixed MustardMixed Mustard9 recipesWine Sauce (for stewed fruit)Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)186 recipesCaper SauceCaper Sauce180 recipesBrown SauceBrown Sauce141 recipes