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Sauce

Ravigotte Sauce

A sauce made with finely shredded herbs, sliced onions, pepper, salt, rocambole, and pounded mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 824 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Ravigotte Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the herbs and onions

  1. Shred the tarragon, chervil, parsley, basil, and thyme very finely. Thinly slice the onions and chop them finely.

  2. Place all the herbs and onions into a marble mortar.

Make the sauce

  1. Pound the mixture thoroughly.

  2. Add pepper, salt, rocambole, and pounded mace, and beat all together.

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. Tarragon + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together824 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Tarragon + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together528 recipes

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

  4. Tarragon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Chervil + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together774 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Provide the sharp, savoury base that gives the sauce its bite.
Tarragon
Adds a distinctive aromatic, slightly anise-like flavour.
Chervil
Contributes a delicate, fresh herbal aroma.
Parsley
Adds fresh, green flavour and body to the herb mixture.
Thyme
Adds earthy, aromatic herbal notes.
Mace
Contributes warm, aromatic spice flavour.

The step that matters

Pound the mixture thoroughly. Pounding ruptures the herb and onion cells, releasing their oils and juices so the flavours blend evenly into a cohesive sauce rather than remaining as separate chunks.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, tarragon, chervil, parsley, thyme, pepper):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Fennelfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, tarragon, chervil, parsley, thyme, 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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