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Sauce

Venetian Sauce

A sauce made with shallots, chervil, white wine, tarragon vinegar, and white wine sauce, finished with herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Venetian Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the reduction

  1. In a saucepan, combine chopped shallots, chervil, white wine, and tarragon vinegar.

  2. Reduce the mixture by two-thirds over medium heat.

Finish the sauce

  1. Add the white wine sauce and boil for a few minutes.

  2. Strain the sauce through a fine sieve.

  3. Finish the sauce with herb juice and add chopped chervil 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. Chervil + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together824 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. White wine + tarragontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together409 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

What each ingredient does

White wine sauce
Forms the body of the sauce that the reduced flavours are added to.
White wine
Reduces down to concentrate flavour and add a light acidity.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds sharp acidity and a distinct tarragon aroma as it reduces.
Shallots
Contribute a mild onion-like aroma and savoury depth during reduction.
Chervil
Adds a delicate, fresh herbal aroma to the finished sauce.
Tarragon
Adds a sweet, anise-like aroma that brightens the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Reducing by two-thirds. Reduction concentrates flavour and acidity as water evaporates. Stopping too early leaves the sauce thin and sharp, while over-reducing makes it intense and can scorch on the pan base, so watch the heat and the volume closely.

“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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