Name: Ravigotte Sauce
Ingredients: ½ cup white wine; ¼ cup vinegar; 2 cups ordinary veloute; 1½ ounces shallot butter; 1 teaspoon chervil; 1 teaspoon tarragon; 1 teaspoon chopped chives

Why it works: Chervil and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 824 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Ravigotte Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

In a saucepan, reduce the white wine and vinegar by half over medium heat.
Add the ordinary velouté and boil gently for a few minutes.
Stir in the shallot butter, chervil, tarragon, and chives until well combined.

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.

Chervil + tarragontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together824 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Chervil + chivetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together370 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Shallot + cherviltop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together266 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Shallot + chivetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together450 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
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

White wine: Adds acidity and aromatic flavour as it reduces into the base of the sauce.
Vinegar: Adds sharp acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the rich velouté.
Velouté: Forms the creamy, thickened body of the sauce.
Shallot butter: Adds fat and a mild onion-like aroma that enriches the sauce.

“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.