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Sauce

Goose, Cold Sauce for

A cold sauce for goose made with sage, lemon rind, shallot, salt, cayenne pepper, and claret.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 887 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Goose, Cold Sauce for

Ingredients

Directions

Steep

  1. Combine the sage leaves, lemon rind, minced shallot, salt, cayenne pepper, and claret in a jar.

  2. Soak for two weeks.

Serve

  1. Pour off the clear liquid and serve in a tureen.

  2. Alternatively, boil ½ cup of the sauce in ½ pint of good gravy.

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. Sage + lemontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together887 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Sage + shallottop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together181 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Green sage leaves
Provides the herbal, aromatic flavour that defines the sauce.
Claret
Forms the liquid base and its acidity and alcohol draw out flavour from the herbs and rind.
Thin lemon rind
Adds bright citrus aroma from its fragrant oils.
Minced shallot
Contributes a mild, savoury onion-like aroma and depth.

The step that matters

Soak for two weeks. The wine and its alcohol and acid slowly extract flavour and aroma from the sage, rind and shallot. Cutting the soak short leaves the liquid weak and under-flavoured, so the full time matters.

Swap the shallot

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Kalefits about as well
  4. Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sage, lemon, 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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