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Poivrade Sauce

A peppercorn and vinegar sauce with Espagnole, red currant jelly, port wine, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Poivrade Sauce

Why it works: Red currant and port wine work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Poivrade Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine peppercorns and vinegar in a saucepan.

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

  3. Stir in Espagnole sauce, red currant jelly, port wine (or claret), and cayenne pepper.

  4. Allow the mixture to boil for 10 minutes.

  5. Strain the sauce through a fine sieve; ready for use.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Red currant + port winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  2. Port wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together598 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Red currant + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together267 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  4. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  5. Red currant + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together188 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Espagnole sauce
Provides the thickened, savory body that the sauce is built on.
Red currant jelly
Adds sweetness and gloss that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Port wine or claret
Adds depth and fruity wine flavor to the reduced sauce.
Peppercorns
Supplies the sharp, aromatic heat that gives the sauce its name.
Vinegar
Adds acidity, which is reduced to concentrate flavor and cut richness.

The step that matters

Reducing the peppercorns and vinegar to half. Reduction concentrates the acid and pepper flavor. If the mixture is not reduced enough, the sauce will taste thin and sharp; if reduced too far, it becomes overly sharp and salty as the flavors intensify.

Swap the red currant

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

  1. Plumfits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Cherryfits about as well
  4. Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against port wine, pepper, sauce, vinegar. 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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