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Olive Sauce

A savory sauce made with brown stock, butter, flour, onions, carrots, olives, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Mary Ronald · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Olive Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce base

  1. Put the butter in a saucepan.

  2. When it bubbles, add the chopped onion and carrot and let them brown.

  3. Add the flour and let it brown.

  4. Add the stock slowly.

  5. Season with salt, pepper, and one clove.

  6. Let simmer for twenty minutes and strain.

Prepare and add the olives

  1. Stone the olives, leaving the meat in one piece.

  2. Boil them in a little water for half an hour.

  3. Add the cooked olives to the strained sauce and cook for five minutes.

Adjust the sauce

  1. Alternatively, dilute a cupful of Espagnole sauce with a cupful of brown stock and add the cooked olives.

  2. If brown sauce is not at hand, use extract of beef from jar (one teaspoonful of extract to one cupful of hot water).

  3. If the sauce gets too thick, dilute it with a little stock.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

618Calories
15 gProtein
14 gFat
108 gCarbs

Counts 7 of 9 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 7 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Olive1 large (4g)4
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0
Saucenot 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 Mary Ronald. 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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Onion + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,779 recipes

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

  3. Olive + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,866 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Olive + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Fat that carries the onion and carrot flavour and helps the flour cook into a roux.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks briefly in the butter and stock.
Brown stock
Provides the liquid and savoury beef flavour that forms the body of the sauce.
Olives
Add a salty, tangy flavour and firm texture to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the stock slowly. Adding liquid gradually to the butter and flour mixture lets the starch disperse evenly, which prevents lumps and gives a smooth, well-thickened sauce.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, onion, sauce, olive, pepper):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, onion, sauce, olive, pepper. 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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