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Sauce

Genevoise Sauce

A sauce made from Espagnole, ham, vegetables, herbs, wine, anchovy essence, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Genevoise Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a pot, combine the Espagnole sauce with grated ham, minced carrot, minced onion, bay leaves, cloves, garlic, thyme, and parsley.

  2. Boil for 15 minutes.

  3. Add claret wine and strain the mixture.

Finish

  1. Finish by beating in anchovy essence and butter 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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Espagnole sauce
Forms the base body and flavour of the sauce.
Claret wine
Adds acidity and depth, balancing the richness of the base.
Anchovy essence
Contributes a salty, savoury depth to the finished sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and a smooth, glossy texture when beaten in.

The step that matters

Beating in the butter. Butter beaten into a hot sauce emulsifies and enriches it, giving a glossy, smooth texture. If the sauce is too hot or boiling, the butter can separate and the sauce looks greasy, so it should be added off the heat or at low heat.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, ham, carrot, onion, garlic, thyme, parsley):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, ham, carrot, onion, garlic, thyme, parsley. 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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