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Sauce

Bordeaux Sauce

A pickled cabbage sauce made with cabbage, green tomatoes, onions, sugar, spices, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Bordeaux Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine chopped cabbage, green tomatoes, and onions in a large pot.

  2. Add sugar, celery seed, black pepper, allspice, cloves, white mustard seed, and coarse sea salt.

  3. Pour in the vinegar and mix well.

  4. Bring the mixture to a boil and cook for 20 minutes.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 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

Cabbage
Provides the bulk of the chopped body and a crisp, fibrous texture as it cooks.
Green tomatoes
Add tartness and body, softening into the mixture during cooking.
Onions
Contribute savory sweetness and aroma as they soften and mellow.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Supplies acidity that preserves the mixture and sharpens its flavor.
White mustard seed
Adds a pungent, sharp flavor that mellows during cooking.

The step that matters

Bring the mixture to a boil and cook for 20 minutes. Boiling softens the chopped vegetables and lets the vinegar and spices blend. Too little cooking leaves the vegetables raw and the flavors harsh, while the acid needs heat to combine fully with the rest of the mixture.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, tomato, sugar, celery, pepper, allspice, clove):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, tomato, sugar, celery, pepper, allspice, clove. 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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