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Sauce

Sauce Robert, for Roast Pork or Goose

A savory sauce made with onions, butter, flour, stock, vinegar, mustard, and optional mushroom catsup or port wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Sauce Robert, for Roast Pork or Goose

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a pan, melt the butter and lightly fry the diced onions until they begin to brown.

  2. Add the flour, stock, vinegar, salt, and pepper; stir to combine.

  3. Pass the mixture through a sieve to pulp it, then reduce it to a proper thickness.

Finish and serve

  1. Before serving, stir in the mustard and optional mushroom catsup or port wine.

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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  5. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Soften and brown during frying, adding sweetness and savory depth to the base.
Butter
Carries the frying of the onions and adds richness to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it combines with the liquids and cooks.
Stock
Forms the main liquid body of the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and balances the richness.
Prepared mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor to finish the sauce.

The step that matters

Reduce to a proper thickness. Reducing concentrates flavor and lets the flour-thickened liquid reach the intended body. Too little reduction leaves the sauce thin and dull, while over-reducing makes it heavy and salty, since the seasoning concentrates too.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, vinegar, pepper, mustard, mushroom):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, vinegar, pepper, mustard, mushroom. 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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