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Sauce Piquante, or Sharp Sauce

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,476 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Sauce Piquante, or Sharp Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Peel the shallot and mushrooms, and scrape the carrot. Chop them finely.

  2. In a stewpan, combine the shallot, carrot, and mushrooms with the butter.

  3. Place the stewpan on the heat and fry until browned.

  4. Stir in the flour and brown stock.

  5. Add the thyme, bay leaf, and Harvey sauce, stirring until it boils.

  6. Remove the stewpan from the heat and let it simmer for 20 minutes.

  7. Season with salt, a few grains of cayenne pepper, and vinegar.

  8. Strain the sauce and it is ready to use.

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + thymetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shallot, mushroom, butter, flour, thyme, pepper, vinegar):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, mushroom, butter, flour, thyme, pepper, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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