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Sauce

Colbebt Sauce

A brown sauce made with Espagnole, sherry, meat glaze, lemon juice, herbs, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 824 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Colbebt Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine the Espagnole sauce, sherry, meat glaze, and lemon juice.

  2. Bring to a boil, then skim off any foam.

  3. Stir in the chopped parsley, tarragon, and chervil.

  4. Finish by whisking in the fresh butter gradually.

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. Tarragon + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together824 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Lemon + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together774 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Espagnole or brown sauce
Provides the base body and rich brown flavour of the sauce.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the sauce.
Meat glaze
Concentrates savoury flavour and adds body to the sauce.
Fresh butter
Whisked in at the end to enrich the sauce and give it a glossy, smooth texture.

The step that matters

Whisking in the butter gradually. Adding cold butter slowly while whisking emulsifies it into the sauce, giving a smooth, glossy texture. Adding it all at once or letting the sauce boil after it goes in can cause it to separate and look greasy.

“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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