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Sauce

Sauce Bobebt

A sauce made with onions, butter, demi-glaze, water or broth, and French mustard, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Sauce Bobebt

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter over medium heat in a stewpan.

  2. Add the chopped onions and cook until they turn a nice yellow color.

  3. Stir in the demi-glaze and water or broth.

  4. Skim off any impurities.

  5. Boil quickly until the sauce reaches a proper thickness.

  6. Remove from heat.

  7. Stir in the French mustard.

  8. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Cooked until yellow, they add sweetness and aroma to the sauce base.
Butter
Cooks the onions gently and adds richness to the sauce.
Demi-glaze
Provides the concentrated beef flavor and body that forms the sauce.
French mustard
Adds sharp tang and a little acidity to balance the rich sauce.

The step that matters

Boil quickly until the sauce reaches a proper thickness. Reducing by boiling evaporates water and concentrates flavor and body. Boiling too briefly leaves the sauce thin, while overcooking can make it too salty or sticky as it reduces further.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, butter, pepper):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, pepper. 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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