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Sauce

Sage and Onion Sauce

A sauce of boiled sage and onions, blended with butter and pepper, served with roast goose, duck, or pork.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Sage and Onion Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sage

  1. Wash and drain the sage leaves, then remove them from the stems.

  2. Boil the sage in a small saucepan with just enough water to cover for about 10 minutes.

  3. Remove the sage, press it in a sieve to drain, and then mince or chop it finely.

Make the sauce

  1. Boil the onions in another saucepan until tender, then chop them finely.

  2. Mix the chopped onions with the minced sage while warm.

  3. Stir in a small piece of butter and season with pepper.

Serve

  1. Serve the sauce in a small tureen with roast goose, duck, or pork.

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. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Sage + oniontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sage + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,312 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Sage leaves
Provides the main herbal aroma and flavour of the sauce.
Onions
Add body and gentle sweetness as they soften when boiled.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, glossy mouthfeel to the sauce.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sage, butter, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sage, butter, 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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