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Sauce

Piquante Sauce

A piquante sauce made with onions, vinegar, brown sauce, broth, cucumber, and parsley, simmered for 20 minutes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,564 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Piquante Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Fry the chopped onions in vinegar until dry, being careful not to brown or scorch them.

  2. Add the brown sauce and broth, and stir to combine.

  3. Incorporate the chopped cucumber and parsley, and cook slowly 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. Cucumber + parsleytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Onion + cucumbertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 recipes

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

  3. Vinegar + cucumbertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  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

Onions
Softened in vinegar to build a mild, aromatic base for the sauce.
Brown sauce
Provides the main body and savory depth of the sauce.
Broth
Thins the sauce and adds moisture and savory flavor.
Cucumber
Adds fresh, cool texture to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Frying the onions in vinegar. Onions scorch easily once the liquid cooks off. Browned or burnt onions turn bitter and dark, so they should be dried gently without colouring.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, vinegar, sauce, cucumber. 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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