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Shallot Sauce,

A sauce made from finely minced shallots simmered with water, vinegar, white wine, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and white wine work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 881 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Shallot Sauce,

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Mince the shallots very finely.

  2. Put the minced shallots into a stewpan with water, vinegar, white wine, pepper, and salt.

  3. Stew for 15 minutes.

Quicker version

  1. For a quicker version, mix 2 teaspoons shallot vinegar, 1 tablespoon white wine, and 1 tablespoon mushroom ketchup into ½ cup melted butter.

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.

  1. Shallot + white winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together881 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Vinegar + white winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

  4. Shallot + vinegartop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Shallots
Provide the main onion-like flavor and aroma, softening as they stew.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that brightens the sauce and balances richness.
White wine
Adds acidity and a fruity aroma that deepens the sauce's flavor.

The step that matters

Mince the shallots very finely. Fine mincing gives the shallots more surface area, so their flavor and aroma release into the liquid during the short stew.

Swap the shallot

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotthe original
  3. Mustardfits about as well
  4. Cabbagefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, white wine, 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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