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Sauce

Green Sauce for Goslings or Geese

A sauce made from green gooseberries, spinach or sorrel, butter, Madeira wine, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 98,233 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Green Sauce for Goslings or Geese

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gooseberry pulp

  1. In a porcelain saucepan, combine the gooseberries, boiling water, and sugar.

  2. Stew gently until the gooseberries are tender enough to pass through a sieve.

  3. Return the pulp to the saucepan.

Finish and serve

  1. Pound the spinach or sorrel leaves in a mortar, then wring them in a towel to extract the juice.

  2. Add the juice, butter, and Madeira to the gooseberry pulp.

  3. Heat the sauce and serve immediately.

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. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Sugar + madeira winetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together343 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Spinach + buttertop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,583 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Butter + madeira winetop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together637 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sugar + spinachtop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Green gooseberries
Provide the tart fruit base that gives the sauce its body and sharp flavour.
Spinach or sorrel leaves
Add green colour and a fresh, slightly sour leafy flavour to the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the sauce.
Madeira wine
Adds sweetness, depth and aroma to balance the tart gooseberries.
White sugar
Sweetens the tart gooseberries so the sauce tastes balanced.

The step that matters

Wringing the leaf juice. Leaves hold a lot of water and fibre; squeezing them thoroughly in a towel removes excess liquid and keeps the sauce from thinning, while the juice carries the green colour and flavour.

Swap the spinach

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, madeira wine):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Spinachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, madeira wine. 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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