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Pepper Sauce

A savory sauce made with butter, onions, shallots, garlic, herbs, spices, carrot, wine, water, vinegar, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and basil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,768 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Pepper Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped onions, shallots, garlic, thyme, basil, bay leaf, cloves, and sliced carrot.

  3. Cook until the mixture is a good color.

  4. Stir in the pinch of flour, then moisten with wine and water.

  5. Add the vinegar and bring to a boil.

  6. Simmer for 30 minutes, then strain the sauce.

  7. Season with salt and pepper 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 + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

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

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Thyme + carrottop 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

Butter
Melts to form the fat base that carries the aromatics and flavor.
Onions
Caramelize slowly during cooking, adding sweetness and depth of color to the sauce.
Shallots
Add a mild, sweet onion flavor that is more delicate than regular onion.
Flour
Thickens the liquid slightly so the sauce has body after simmering.
Wine
Adds acidity and aromatic flavor as it reduces into the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the richness of the butter.

The step that matters

Cook until the mixture is a good color. Browning the onions, shallots and carrot builds the deep, savory flavor of the sauce. Stopping too early leaves it pale and flat, while cooking too long can turn the aromatics bitter.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, shallot, clove, garlic, thyme, basil, carrot):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, shallot, clove, garlic, thyme, basil, carrot. 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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