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Sauce

Round the Table

Two sauces: a piquant sauce made with vinegar, stock, and gherkins and capers, and an Italian-style sauce with mushrooms and white wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Chevalley de Rivaz, Victor · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 20 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,108 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Round the Table

Ingredients

Directions

Make the vinegar base

  1. Put half a pint of vinegar into a saucepan with one clove of garlic, a couple of shallots minced fine, a sprig of thyme, a bay leaf, pepper and spices to taste, and, if liked, a little cayenne.

  2. Let the whole boil till reduced to one-half.

  3. Add half a pint of stock or broth.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt a piece of butter the size of an egg in a saucepan.

  2. Mix a little flour with it.

  3. Add the above liquor, strained.

  4. Stir the sauce till it boils.

  5. Add salt if required, and a little parsley minced fine, and some chopped gherkins and capers.

Add the mushroom and wine

  1. Mince a couple of shallots quite fine, and fry them in a little salad oil.

  2. When they are a pale straw colour, add two or three mushrooms and a little parsley minced in the same manner.

  3. Moisten with enough stock and white wine, in equal parts, to make the sauce.

  4. Put in, tied up in a small bundle, a clove of garlic, some sweet herbs, and a bay leaf; add pepper and salt to taste, and let the sauce boil for half an hour.

  5. Remove the bundle.

  6. Melt a piece of butter, add a very little flour, then gradually mix the sauce with it.

  7. Stir it well on the fire, and as soon as it is hot it is ready.

Finish with ham and onion

  1. Fry in butter some onions chopped fine till they are a golden colour.

  2. Add some ham and mushrooms finely minced.

  3. Moisten with some good stock; put in a clove of garlic, a few cloves, pepper and salt to taste, a bay leaf, a little thyme, and some parsley.

  4. When the sauce has boiled an hour or so, add one glass of white wine and a squeeze of lemon; let it boil five minutes more, then strain it carefully, and finish it as the other.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

253Calories
9 gProtein
18 gFat
10 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 13 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Wine2 tbsp cooking wine (30ml)25
Mushroom1/2 cup sliced (35g)15
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Cayenne1 tsp (1.8g)6
Garlic1 clove (3g)4
Thyme1 tsp dried (1.4g)4
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
Bay Leaf1 leaf (0.6g)2
Parsley1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)1
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Chevalley de Rivaz, Victor. 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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Garlic + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,608 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Thyme + mushroomtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Mushroom + white winetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  5. Garlic + mushroomtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,700 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that defines the piquant flavour of the sauce.
Butter
Enriches the sauce with fat and carries flavour, and forms the base for the flour roux.
Flour (in the method)
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the butter, giving body and a smooth texture.
Stock
Adds savoury depth and liquid that forms the body of the sauce.
White wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth, rounding out the sauce during the long simmer.
Mushrooms
Contribute earthy savoury flavour and body to the sauce.

The step that matters

Thickening the butter and flour. Flour must be cooked into the butter before the liquid is added, or the sauce can taste raw and form lumps. Stirring well over the heat lets the starch swell evenly and thicken smoothly.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (garlic, vinegar, thyme, butter, egg, mushroom, white wine):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against garlic, vinegar, thyme, butter, egg, mushroom, white wine. 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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