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Sauce

Ham Sauce for Grills and Broils

A savory sauce made with diced ham, butter, shallots, brown sauce, parsley, cayenne pepper, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Ham Sauce for Grills and Broils

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine the diced ham, butter, and minced shallots.

  2. Fry over medium heat for 2-3 minutes.

  3. Add the brown sauce, chopped parsley, and cayenne pepper.

  4. Stir over the heat for 6-8 minutes.

  5. Just before serving, stir in the lemon juice.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  5. Shallot + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 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

Cooked lean ham
Provides savoury meaty flavour and body to the sauce.
Butter
Carries flavour and adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
Brown sauce
Forms the base of the sauce and supplies most of its liquid and savoury depth.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, savoury sauce.

The step that matters

Just before serving, stir in the lemon juice. Acid added early can thin and dull the sauce over prolonged heat, so adding it at the end keeps its brightness and fresh flavour.

“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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