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Sauce a LA Mariniere

A fish sauce made with eel, pike, vegetables, wine, and Spanish sauce, finished with caramelized onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and 4,480 recipes mention both. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

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

Also mentioned in the method: fish

Directions

Make the fish sauce

  1. Cut the eel and pike into small pieces.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the fish pieces, onion, carrot, parsley, mushrooms, thyme, bay leaves, allspice, and red wine.

  3. Boil for 40 minutes.

  4. Add the Spanish sauce and simmer for 30 minutes.

  5. Remove the fish pieces.

  6. Strain the liquid.

Glaze the onions and serve

  1. Peel the small onions.

  2. Place the peeled onions in a saucepan with butter.

  3. Cook the onions until they begin to color.

  4. Add a little of the strained sauce to the onions and cook until combined.

  5. Combine the cooked onions with the remaining sauce.

  6. Serve.

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.

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. Mushroom + saucetop 11% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together4,480 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Thyme + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,077 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Eel
Adds body and rich flavor to the sauce as it cooks slowly in the wine.
Pike
Adds body and savory fish flavor to the sauce as it simmers.
Red wine
Provides acidity and depth, and its flavor concentrates as the liquid reduces.
Spanish sauce
Forms the thickened base of the sauce, adding body and savory richness.
Butter
Adds fat and helps the small onions brown lightly and taste rich.
Small white onions
Add mild sweetness and tender texture once cooked in butter.

The step that matters

Cook the onions until they begin to color. Browning in butter develops sweet, savory flavor, but over-browning turns them bitter. Stop as soon as they take on light color so they stay tender and mild.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, parsley, mushroom, thyme, allspice, red wine, sauce):

  1. Tomatobetter flavor fit
  2. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  3. Shallotbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, parsley, mushroom, thyme, allspice, red wine, sauce. 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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