Name: Sauce Piquante
Ingredients: 2 shallots or onions, fried; 1 small piece of garlic; sweet herbs (to taste); ½ cup vinegar; ½ cup water or broth; condiments (mushroom catsup, Worcestershire sauce, tomato sauce, truffles, nutmeg, etc.); chopped gherkins (optional)

Why it works: Garlic and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,076 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Sauce Piquante

Ingredients

2 shallots or onions, fried
1 small piece of garlic
sweet herbs (to taste)
½ cup vinegar
½ cup water or broth
condiments (mushroom catsup, Worcestershire sauce, tomato sauce, truffles, nutmeg, etc.)
chopped gherkins (optional)

Directions

Fry shallots or onions in a pan.
Add garlic and sweet herbs.
Mix vinegar and water or broth in equal parts and strain.
Combine the strained mixture with the fried ingredients.
Add any desired condiments and flavors.
Optionally, stir in chopped gherkins for added flavor.

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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Garlic + tomatotop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,076 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,982 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Shallot + garlictop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,000 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Mushroom + truffletop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,900 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Shallot + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,019 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Shallots or onions: Fried until softened, they add sweetness and savory depth to the base.
Vinegar: Provides the sharp acidity that defines the piquant character of the sauce.
Garlic: Adds pungent aroma and savory flavor to the base.
Water or broth: Dilutes the vinegar and adds liquid body to the sauce.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shallot, garlic, vinegar, mushroom, sauce, tomato, truffle):

Capersfits better
Tarragonfits better
Thymefits better
Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, garlic, vinegar, mushroom, sauce, tomato, truffle. 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.