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Sauce

Volage Sauce

A sauce made from pounded anchovies, shallots, garlic and cayenne pepper steeped in vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,000 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Volage Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Pound the anchovies, shallots, garlic, and cayenne pepper in a mortar until well combined.

  2. Add the vinegar and mix thoroughly.

Age and bottle

  1. Transfer the mixture to a jar and let it stand for 10 days.

  2. Strain the mixture through muslin and bottle it for use.

  3. For best flavor, allow it to age.

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. Shallot + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Shallot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Garlic + peppertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

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

  5. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Anchovies
Add a salty, savoury depth that rounds out the sauce.
Shallots
Contribute a mild sweetness and aromatic onion flavour.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma that mellows as the sauce steeps.
Cayenne pepper
Provides the sharp heat that defines the sauce.
Vinegar
Acidity extracts flavour from the solids and gives the sauce its tang.

The step that matters

Letting it stand for 10 days. Steeping in acid lets the raw bite of garlic, shallot and pepper mellow and blend with the anchovy. Straining and bottling too early leaves the sauce harsh and unbalanced.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shallot, garlic, pepper, vinegar):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, garlic, pepper, vinegar. 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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