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Sauce

Sauce for Haddock

A vinaigrette sauce made with vinegar, thyme, bay leaves, peppercorns, egg yolks, butter, and tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,370 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Sauce for Haddock

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine the vinegar, thyme, bay leaves, and crushed peppercorns in a saucepan.

  2. Reduce the mixture to half its volume.

  3. Add the egg yolks gradually, then slowly incorporate the fresh butter while standing the pot in a bain-marie or a pan of boiling water.

  4. Stir until the sauce thickens.

  5. Finally, stir in the boiling tomato sauce.

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 + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,370 recipes

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

  2. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Tomato + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,469 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Vinegar + tomatotop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,063 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Vinegar + thymetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify and thicken the butter into a smooth, rich sauce as they set gently with heat.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and body, forming an emulsion with the egg yolks.
French vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and reduces to a concentrated base.
Tomato sauce
Adds color, sweetness and tomato flavor stirred in at the end.

The step that matters

Incorporating the butter over gentle heat. Adding butter too fast or over direct high heat can scramble the egg yolks or break the emulsion, leaving a greasy, grainy sauce. Standing the pot in a bain-marie keeps the heat gentle, so the yolks thicken slowly and hold the butter in a smooth emulsion.

Swap the thyme

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Thymethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, egg, butter, tomato, sauce. 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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