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Sauce

Neapolitan Sauce

A savory sauce made with shallots, capers, peppercorns, lemon, stock, spices, butter, flour, shrimp, cream, anchovy essence, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 405 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Neapolitan Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a small enamelled saucepan, combine shallots, capers, peppercorns, and lemon juice.

  2. Stir over medium heat for 3-4 minutes.

  3. Add stock, cayenne, clove, bay leaf, and mace; simmer gently for 20 minutes.

  4. Remove from heat and let cool.

Finish the sauce

  1. In a separate saucepan, melt butter and mix in flour until smooth.

  2. Gradually add the cooled sauce, stirring until it boils.

  3. Strain the sauce, return it to the saucepan, and bring to a boil again.

  4. Remove from heat, stir in shrimp and cream, and add anchovy essence and lemon juice to taste.

  5. Serve immediately.

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 + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together405 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Shallot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Capers + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,222 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Shallot + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Shallots
Provide aromatic sweetness and savoury depth as they soften in the pan.
Butter
Carries flavour and enriches the sauce with richness and body.
Flour
Thickens the stock mixture into a smooth, body-rich sauce when cooked with butter.
Stock made from bones
Supplies the liquid base and savoury depth that the sauce is built on.
Cream
Adds richness and a softer, rounder texture to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the cooled sauce to the roux. Adding the liquid gradually while stirring keeps the flour smooth and lump-free, so the sauce thickens evenly as it comes to the boil.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shallot, capers, lemon, clove, butter, egg, flour):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, capers, lemon, clove, butter, egg, flour. 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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