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Sauce

Epicures’ Delight Sauce

A savory sauce made with salt, oil, vinegar, garlic, pepper, paprika, and tomato catsup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Olive M. Hulse · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Garlic and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 14,076 recipes mention both. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Epicures’ Delight Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Rub a bowl with a clove of garlic.

  2. Take one teaspoonful of salt, half a teaspoonful of black pepper, a quarter of a teaspoonful of paprika, and a tablespoonful of tomato catsup.

  3. Add seven tablespoonfuls of oil gradually, and two teaspoonfuls of vinegar.

By Olive M. Hulse. 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Garlic + tomatotop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Garlic + peppertop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together27,090 recipes

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

  5. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together11,368 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

Oil
Forms the body of the sauce as fine droplets suspended in the vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds sharpness that balances the richness of the oil.
Garlic
Gives aroma that carries into the sauce from the rubbed bowl.
Tomato catsup
Adds sweetness and tang to the sauce.

The step that matters

Add the oil gradually. Oil must be added slowly while mixing so its droplets disperse and stay suspended in the vinegar. Pouring it in quickly can cause the mixture to separate into layers of oil and liquid.

Flavor stand-ins for the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, garlic, pepper, tomato):

  1. Basilbetter flavor fit
  2. Corianderbetter flavor fit
  3. Oreganobetter flavor fit
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, garlic, pepper, tomato. 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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