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Ragout Souse

A ragout sauce made with souse, butter, flour, water, cloves, allspice, Madeira wine, and oysters.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice 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 ↓

Ragout Souse

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy

  1. In another vessel, melt the butter and mix it with flour to create a gravy.

  2. Add a little boiling water to the gravy.

  3. Stir in beaten cloves and allspice.

  4. Pour in the Madeira wine.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the souse until light brown.

  2. Dress the oysters with the souse 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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Flour + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,302 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,671 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Melts with flour to form the base of the gravy, adding richness and smooth body.
Flour
Thickens the melted butter into a gravy, giving it body and a smooth texture.
Madeira wine
Adds sweetness, acidity and aroma to the gravy.
Souse
Frying browns its surface, adding savoury flavour to the dish.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, allspice, madeira wine, oyster):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Cinnamonfits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, allspice, madeira wine, oyster. 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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