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Sauce

Fine Herbs Sauce

A savory sauce made with brown sauce, herbs, mushrooms, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 266 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Fine Herbs Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine the Brown Sauce, shallots (or chives), parsley, tomato puree, chervil, mushrooms, sherry, and salt.

  2. Simmer the mixture gently for 20 minutes without boiling.

  3. Serve the sauce warm.

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 + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together266 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together774 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + sherrytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,176 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

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

What each ingredient does

Brown sauce
Forms the base of the sauce, providing body and savory depth.
Shallots
Add a mild aromatic onion flavor that mellows during gentle simmering.
Tomato puree
Adds acidity and concentrated tomato flavor with a little color.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aromatic richness that deepens the sauce's flavor.
Mushrooms
Contribute earthy savory flavor and a little texture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer without boiling. Gentle simmering lets the flavors meld and the sauce thicken slightly, while a rolling boil can reduce too quickly, concentrate salt and make the sauce taste harsh or cloudy.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, shallot, parsley, chervil, mushroom, sherry):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, shallot, parsley, chervil, mushroom, sherry. 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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