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Sauce

Tarragon Sauce

A savory sauce made with lard, flour, beef broth, onion, sugar, tarragon, sour cream, and salt.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and tarragon work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and 217 recipes mention both. Both carry anethole, which smells sweet, anise. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Cook the base

  1. Fry the onion in lard until yellowish.

  2. Add the flour and fry a little more.

  3. Pour in the broth.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the salt, sugar, and tarragon.

  2. Let the sauce boil until it is medium thick.

  3. Serve warm.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Beef + tarragontop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together217 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  2. Beef + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17,091 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together43,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Onion + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together10,826 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Flour + tarragontop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together562 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Onion and cream share little aroma chemistry, yet 10,826 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Lard
Fat that carries the onion flavor and helps the flour cook evenly.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells in the hot liquid.
Beef broth
Provides the liquid base and savory moisture for the sauce.
Onion
Frying it until yellowish builds sweet, savory aroma in the sauce.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the savory broth and herb flavor.
Tarragon
Supplies the herbal, slightly anise-like aroma that defines the sauce.

The step that matters

Let the sauce boil until it is medium thick. Flour thickens only when its starch is heated enough in liquid to swell. Stopping early leaves the sauce thin, while boiling too long can make it gluey or reduce it too far.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, beef, sugar, tarragon, cream):

  1. Potatobetter flavor fit
  2. Asparagusbetter flavor fit
  3. Chivebetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, beef, sugar, tarragon, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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