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Ravigote Sauce, for Hare and Venison

A buttery sauce with onion, carrot, horseradish, thyme, bay leaf, mace, vinegar, stock, thickening, red currant jelly, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,563 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Ravigote Sauce, for Hare and Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the onion, carrot, horseradish, thyme, bay leaf, and mace.

  3. Stir over gentle heat until the onion is tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Pour in the vinegar and stock, then add the brown thickening.

  2. Skim the sauce until smooth and custard-like.

  3. Dissolve the red currant jelly in the sauce.

  4. Rub the sauce through a fine sieve.

  5. Add pepper and salt if needed, and serve in a tureen.

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. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Thyme + red curranttop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together121 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Onion + horseradishtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Carries the aromatics and adds richness to the sauce's body.
Onion
Softens into the base, adding savory sweetness and body as it cooks.
Stock
Provides the liquid that the thickening sets into a smooth sauce.
Brown thickening
Thickens the stock so the sauce turns smooth and custard-like.
Red currant jelly
Adds sweetness and gloss, balancing the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances its richness.

The step that matters

Skimming until smooth and custard-like. Thickening must be fully blended and the sauce kept at a gentle simmer, since skimming and sieving remove lumps and surface fat, and boiling too hard can scorch the thickening or break the texture.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion, carrot, horseradish, thyme, vinegar, red currant):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, carrot, horseradish, thyme, vinegar, red currant. 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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