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Sauce

Mince Herb Sauce

A savory sauce made with onions, demi‑glaze, broth, herbs, and optional mushrooms and garlic.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Mince Herb Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Heat the oil in a stewpan and sauté the chopped onions for a few minutes.

  2. Add the demi-glaze and broth or water; bring to a boil and skim off any scum.

  3. If the sauce is too thick and scum does not rise, add ½ cup of broth or water.

  4. Boil and reduce to the desired thickness.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the chopped parsley, mushrooms, cayenne, and lemon juice.

  2. Optionally, add a little garlic for extra flavor.

  3. Serve warm.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Parsley + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,700 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Demi-glaze
Provides the concentrated meaty base and body that the sauce is built on.
Onions
Softened in oil to add a sweet, savory aromatic foundation.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, savory flavors.

The step that matters

Skimming while bringing to a boil. Scum rising from the demi-glaze and broth must be removed early, or it cloud the sauce and leave an impure flavor. Reducing too hard or too long can make the sauce overly thick or salty as it concentrates.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, mushroom, lemon, garlic):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Oreganofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, mushroom, lemon, garlic. 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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