Name: Bordeaux Sauce
Ingredients: 1 quart green tomatoes, chopped; 2 quarts cabbage, chopped; 1 red pepper, chopped; 1 teaspoon turmeric; 1 teaspoon whole spice; 1½ teaspoons celery seed; 2 teaspoons salt; 1 quart vinegar; 2 cups sugar

Why it works: Turmeric and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,356 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Bordeaux Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Combine all ingredients in a large pot.
Boil for 30 minutes.
Pour into sterilized jars and seal.

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.

Turmeric + celerytop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,356 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,377 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + turmerictop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,478 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes: Provide the bulk and body of the sauce as they cook down.
Cabbage: Adds bulk and a little texture to the chopped relish-style sauce.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that gives the sauce its sharp tang and helps preserve it.
Sugar: Balances the acidity of the vinegar with sweetness.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, pepper, turmeric, celery, vinegar, sugar):

Mustardfits better
Cauliflowerfits better
Capsicumfits better
Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, pepper, turmeric, celery, vinegar, sugar. 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.