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Espagnole, or Brown Spanish Sauce

A brown sauce made with ham, veal, stock, herbs, onions, shalots, mace, sherry, and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Isabella Beeton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,768 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Espagnole, or Brown Spanish Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the glaze and stock

  1. Cut the ham and veal into small square pieces and put them into a stewpan.

  2. Moisten the pieces with 1/2 pint of the stock and simmer until the bottom of the stewpan is covered with a nicely-coloured glaze; when the glaze is formed, add a few more spoonfuls to detach it.

  3. Add the remainder of the stock, along with the spices, herbs, shalots, and onions, and simmer very gently for 1 hour.

Finish the sauce

  1. Strain and skim off every particle of fat.

  2. When required, thicken with butter and flour or a little roux.

  3. Add the wine (sherry or Madeira) and, if necessary, a seasoning of cayenne; serve when ready.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

325Calories
29 gProtein
15 gFat
13 gCarbs

Counts 6 of 7 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Pork100g cooked242
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Wine2 tbsp cooking wine (30ml)25
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Cayenne1 tsp (1.8g)6
Parsley1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)1
Macenot in our table0

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

By Isabella Beeton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. Parsley + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  4. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

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

  5. Clove + sherrytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,237 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

What each ingredient does

White stock
Forms the liquid base that reduces and carries the flavour of the sauce.
Lean ham
Browns in the pan to form the glaze and adds savoury depth.
Shalots
Adds a mild, sweet onion aroma to the simmered liquid.
Green onions
Adds gentle aroma to the simmered liquid.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aroma when stirred in at the end.

The step that matters

Colouring the glaze. The glaze should turn a rich brown without scorching on the base of the stewpan. Scorched bits taste bitter and spoil the colour, so add spoonfuls of stock to loosen the glaze as it forms.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, parsley, onion, clove, sherry):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, parsley, onion, clove, sherry. 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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