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Bordeaux Sauce

A sauce made from green tomatoes, cabbage, onions, spices, brown sugar, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Bordeaux Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine all ingredients in a large pot.

  2. Boil for 20 minutes.

  3. Sprinkle salt on the cabbage, onions, and tomatoes, and let them sit for about 30 minutes.

  4. Drain the mixture before adding the spices and vinegar.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Turmeric + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Turmeric + allspicetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Provide the bulk and body of the sauce.
Cabbage
Adds bulk and a tender, soft texture as it cooks down.
Onions
Add savoury depth and sweetness as they soften.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavour and helps preserve the sauce.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the vinegar and spices.

The step that matters

Drain the mixture before adding the spices and vinegar. Salt draws water out of the cabbage, onions, and tomatoes. Draining off that liquid keeps the sauce thick and stops the added vinegar and spices from being diluted.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, onion, turmeric, celery, clove, allspice, ginger):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, onion, turmeric, celery, clove, allspice, ginger. 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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