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Sauce

Bordelaise Sauce

A French sauce made with vinegar, shallots, red pepper, sea salt, butter, Spanish sauce, and thinly sliced beef marrow.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Bordelaise Sauce

Why it works: Pepper and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Bordelaise Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Boil shallots in vinegar for 15 minutes.

  2. Add minced red pepper, coarse sea salt, and butter.

Finish the sauce

  1. Stir in Spanish sauce and beef marrow.

  2. Simmer for 10 minutes.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  2. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

  3. Vinegar + shallottop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Shallot + saucetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,303 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Vinegar
Sharp acidity that mellows and concentrates as it boils with the shallots.
Shallots
Gentle sweetness and aroma that develop as they cook in the vinegar.
Spanish sauce
Savory, brown base that gives the sauce its body and depth.
Beef marrow
Melts into the sauce, adding richness and a silky, rounded texture.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the sauce taste rounder and gives it a glossy finish.

The step that matters

Simmering after adding the marrow. Marrow is mostly fat, which melts slowly. Keeping the sauce at a gentle simmer lets it melt evenly and blend in without the fat separating or the sauce scorching on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the shallot

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Onionfits about as well
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, pepper, butter, sauce, beef. 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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