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Sauce

Fignons Sauce

A sauce made from Poivrade sauce, juniper berries, fir-apple kernels, raisins, and Madeira wine, served with venison.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,920 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Fignons Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the Poivrade sauce.

  2. Prepare an infusion by combining juniper berries and water in a pot.

  3. Add crushed juniper berries and let it simmer.

  4. Soak raisins in tepid water for one hour.

Make the sauce

  1. Strain the juniper infusion through a linen cloth.

  2. Mix the strained infusion with grilled fir-apple kernels, soaked raisins, and Madeira wine.

Serve

  1. Serve the sauce with joints of venison.

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. Apple + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Sauce + madeira winetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together230 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Raisin + madeira winetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together61 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Apple + madeira winetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together62 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sauce + raisintop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together297 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Poivrade sauce
Forms the savoury base that the other flavours are added to.
Juniper berries
Give the sauce a resinous, piney aroma.
Raisins
Add sweetness and soft, plump texture.
Fir-apple kernels
Add a toasted, nutty note and some bite.
Madeira wine
Adds fortified-wine depth and aroma to the sauce.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, raisin, madeira wine):

  1. Currantfits about as well
  2. Applethe original
  3. Orangefits about as well
  4. Lemonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, raisin, madeira wine. 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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