Skip to main content
Drink

Sa Uces

A collection of sauces: Sauce Piquante, Bread-Sauce, Sauce Bearnaise, and Parisian Sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Caron, Pierre, fl. 1886-1899 · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 21 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Bread and butter match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 27,145 recipes mention both. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

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

Directions

Make the vinegar and shallot base

  1. Put two tablespoonfuls of vinegar into a saucepan and reduce by half.

  2. Chop four shallots very fine.

  3. Put the shallots in a saucepan with four tablespoonfuls of sweet-oil.

  4. When the mixture begins to color slightly, add half a pint of Spanish sauce (Art. 80).

Finish the sauce

  1. Add the reduced vinegar to the other ingredients, with a tablespoonful of Bechamel sauce (Art. 83) and an ounce of butter, mixing all well together.

  2. Take the yolks of four eggs and mix them in a little water.

  3. Remove the sauce from the fire when it has ceased boiling, add the egg yolk mixture, the juice of a lemon, strain, and serve.

Make the onion and crumb variation

  1. Chop an onion very fine.

  2. Put the onion in a saucepan with four ounces of bread-crumbs (sieved).

  3. Add a little salt, pepper, and a glass of milk.

  4. Boil for ten minutes.

  5. Add a glass of cream.

  6. Serve.

Make the shallot and butter sauce

  1. Chop up three shallots.

  2. Put the shallots in a saucepan with a pinch of chervil, a branch of tarragon, a green onion, and two tablespoonfuls of vinegar.

  3. Reduce by half, and let cool.

  4. Add four ounces of butter, eight yolks of eggs, a sherry-glass of water, salt, pepper, and a very little nutmeg.

  5. Put the saucepan again on a gentle fire, stir well until the sauce thickens.

  6. Strain, and serve.

By Caron, Pierre, fl. 1886-1899. 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. See the original page.

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. Bread + buttertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,145 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + truffletop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Sherry + vinegartop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together660 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  4. Bread + eggtop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together22,584 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Butter + sherrytop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg yolks thicken the sauce as they set with gentle heat, giving it body and a smooth texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the sauce a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
Bread-crumbs
Absorb liquid and thicken the mixture, giving it body.
Shallots
Provide a mild onion-like aroma and sweetness when softened in oil.
Vinegar
Adds acidity, sharpening the flavour and balancing the richness of the eggs and butter.

The step that matters

Stir the egg yolks over gentle heat until the sauce thickens. Egg yolks set at low temperatures. If the sauce boils or gets too hot, the yolks can scramble and curdle, leaving a grainy texture instead of a smooth sauce.

Flavor stand-ins for the chervil

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, sauce, truffle, sherry, vinegar, egg):

  1. Parsleybetter flavor fit
  2. Tarragonbetter flavor fit
  3. Nutmegbetter flavor fit
  4. Chervilthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, sauce, truffle, sherry, vinegar, egg. 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.

You might also like

Illustration of Raspberry VinegarIllustrationRaspberry Vinegar214 recipesIllustration of Sugar VinegarIllustrationSugar Vinegar20 recipesIllustration of Vegetable SoupIllustrationVegetable Soup350 recipesIllustration of Brown Coffee with EggIllustrationBrown Coffee with Egg175 recipes