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Sauce

Beyrout Sauce

A sauce made with butter, onions, vinegars, Espagnole sauce, mushroom catsup, Harvey sauce, sugar, and anchovy essence.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and anchovy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Beyrout Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, bring the butter and minced onions to a boil.

  2. Add the tarragon vinegar, common vinegar, Espagnole sauce, mushroom catsup, and Harvey sauce.

  3. Simmer and skim the mixture until creamy.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in sugar and anchovy essence.

Serve

  1. Serve with cold fish and fish salads.

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. Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

  5. Onion + tarragontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,568 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Forms the rich, creamy body of the sauce and carries its flavours.
Onions
Add aromatic sweetness and savoury depth as they soften in the butter.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that brightens the rich butter and balances the sauce.
Espagnole sauce
Supplies a brown, savoury base that gives the sauce body and depth.
Mushroom catsup
Contributes concentrated savoury, umami flavour.

The step that matters

Simmer and skim the mixture until creamy. Butter emulsified with the liquids can separate if it overheats or boils hard, so a gentle simmer keeps the sauce smooth. Skimming removes foam and impurities that would otherwise cloud the sauce and dull its flavour.

Swap the tarragon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion, vinegar, sauce, mushroom, sugar, anchovy):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Tarragonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, vinegar, sauce, mushroom, sugar, anchovy. 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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