Skip to main content
Sauce

Robert Sauce

A savory sauce made with butter, onions, vinegar, thickener, broth, Bovril, spices, mustard, mushroom ketchup, anchovy essence, and optional port.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Onion and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Robert Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Fry the chopped onions until lightly colored.

  3. Add the vinegar and simmer for 4 minutes.

  4. Stir in the brown thickening or flour, broth or water, Bovril, pepper, and salt.

  5. Cook the sauce over low heat for 20 minutes.

  6. Mix in the mustard, mushroom ketchup, and anchovy essence.

  7. Serve the sauce warm.

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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  5. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Carries the onions and adds richness and flavor to the sauce.
Onions
Frying them builds sweetness and savory depth into the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the sauce's flavor.
Brown thickening or flour
Thickens the liquid so the sauce becomes body rather than watery.
Mustard
Adds sharp heat and pungency that balances the richness.

The step that matters

Cook the sauce over low heat for 20 minutes. Gentle heat lets the flour or thickening hydrate and cook out its raw taste while the flavors meld, without scorching the onions and butter at the base of the pan.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, vinegar, flour, pepper, mustard, mushroom, ketchup):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, vinegar, flour, pepper, mustard, mushroom, ketchup. 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.

You might also like

Mixed MustardMixed Mustard9 recipesWine Sauce (for stewed fruit)Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)186 recipesCaper SauceCaper Sauce180 recipesBrown SauceBrown Sauce141 recipes