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Sauce

To Make Robert Sauce

Robert Sauce is a savory sauce made with cullis, bay leek, onion, mace, mustard, and red wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Leek and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,326 recipes. Both carry ethyl butyrate, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

To Make Robert Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the sauce

  1. Combine cullis, bay leek, sliced onion, mace, mustard, and red wine in a saucepan.

  2. Boil the mixture for 15 minutes.

Strain and reduce

  1. Strain the sauce.

  2. Reduce it until it reaches a glaze consistency.

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. Leek + oniontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,326 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

  2. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  3. Leek + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together21 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Onion + macetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

  5. Onion + red winetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Cullis
Provides the main body and savory base of the sauce.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth, and concentrates in flavor as it reduces.
Onion
Adds aromatic depth and mild sweetness as it cooks down.
Mustard
Adds sharp pungency that balances the richness of the sauce.
Mace
Adds a warm, aromatic spice note.

The step that matters

Reduce to glaze consistency. As water evaporates, the sauce thickens and its flavors, salt, and sugars concentrate quickly. Stopping too late can make it overly thick, salty, or prone to scorching on the base of the pan.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (leek, onion, mustard, red wine):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against leek, onion, mustard, red wine. 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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