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Sauce

Sauce Piquante

A vinegar-based sauce flavored with pepper, thyme, broth, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and thyme are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,585 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Sauce Piquante

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine the vinegar, pepper, and thyme.

  2. Bring to a boil and reduce to half the quantity.

  3. Add the broth or clear gravy and boil again until reduced by half.

  4. Season with a little salt.

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. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  2. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  3. Vinegar + thymetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that defines the sauce and concentrates as it reduces.
Broth or clear gravy
Adds savory depth and body as the liquid reduces into a richer sauce.

The step that matters

Reducing the vinegar. Boiling drives off water and some of the sharp vinegar aroma while concentrating the remaining flavor. Reducing too little leaves the sauce thin and harsh, while reducing too far can make it overly sour and syrupy.

Swap the thyme

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Thymethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, 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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