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Sauce

Sauce Fiquante

A French sauce made with shallots, vinegar, wine, half‑glaze, gherkins, capers, chervil, parsley, and tarragon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 405 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Sauce Fiquante

Ingredients

Directions

Reduce the sauce

  1. Combine minced shallots, vinegar, and white wine in a saucepan.

  2. Reduce the liquid by half over medium heat.

  3. Bring the sauce to a boil.

  4. Skim off any scum for 30 minutes.

Finish

  1. Remove from heat.

  2. Stir in gherkins, capers, chervil, parsley, and tarragon.

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 + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together405 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Chervil + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together824 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Capers + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together135 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Shallot + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together266 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Shallot + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together602 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

Shallots
Soften into the reduction, adding savoury, aromatic depth to the sauce.
Vinegar
Provides sharp acidity that gives the sauce its tangy edge.
White wine
Adds acidity and flavour that concentrate as the liquid reduces.
Half-glaze
Gives the sauce body, richness and savoury depth.
Gherkins
Add sour, tangy bite and a little crunch to the finished sauce.
Capers
Add briny, sharp notes that stand out against the rich base.

The step that matters

Reducing the vinegar and wine by half. As liquid evaporates, the acids and flavours concentrate. Stopping at half keeps the sauce balanced, while reducing further can make it harshly sour and overly intense.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shallot, vinegar, white wine, capers, chervil, tarragon):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Fennelfits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Dillfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, vinegar, white wine, capers, chervil, tarragon. 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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