Name: Eschalot Sauce
Ingredients: 1 dessert spoon of eschalot, finely chopped; ½ pint of good gravy or melted butter; salt to taste; pepper to taste; 1 tablespoon of vinegar

Why it works: Pepper and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,814 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Eschalot Sauce

Ingredients

1 dessert spoon of eschalot, finely chopped
½ pint of good gravy or melted butter
salt to taste
pepper to taste
1 tablespoon of vinegar

Directions

Prepare the shallot

Scald the chopped eschalot in hot water over the fire.
Drain the eschalot and add it to the gravy or melted butter.

Finish the sauce

Season with salt and pepper.
Stir in the vinegar 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.

Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + vinegartop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,513 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Eschalot: Adds a mild onion-like aroma and savoury flavour to the sauce.
Gravy or melted butter: Provides the liquid base, body and richness of the sauce.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the rich base.

“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.