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Sauce

Reform Sauce

A savory sauce made with onion, ham, herbs, brown sauce, tomato, and tarragon vinegar, simmered and strained.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and tarragon work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 391 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Reform Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a skillet, melt a little butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped onion, diced ham, and chopped tomato; fry for 5 minutes.

  3. Stir in the herbs, brown sauce, and tarragon vinegar.

  4. Cook slowly for 15 minutes, then strain the sauce before serving.

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. Tomato + tarragontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together391 recipes

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

  2. Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Onion + tarragontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,568 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Onion
Softens and sweetens as it fries, building the savory base of the sauce.
Ham
Adds savory, meaty flavor that carries through the finished sauce.
Brown sauce
Forms the body and main flavor of the sauce as it simmers.
Tomato
Adds moisture and gentle acidity that brightens the rich brown sauce.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds sharp acidity and aromatic tarragon notes that lift the sauce.

The step that matters

Cook slowly for 15 minutes, then strain. A gentle simmer lets the flavors blend and reduce without scorching the sugars and solids in the brown sauce. Straining removes the softened onion, tomato, and herb bits so the sauce turns smooth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, sauce, tomato, tarragon, vinegar, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, sauce, tomato, tarragon, vinegar, butter. 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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