Name: Piquant Sauce
Ingredients: 1 small shallot, chopped; a few spoonfuls of stock; coulis (to taste); juice of 1 lemon; white pepper (to taste); coarse sea salt (to taste); a pinch of sugar; 2 drops of garlic vinegar

Why it works: Shallot and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,000 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Piquant Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

In a small saucepan, combine the chopped shallot and stock.
Heat the saucepan over low heat until the stock reduces.
Once reduced, add enough coulis to achieve your desired sauce consistency.
Let it boil for a few minutes.
Squeeze in the lemon juice, then season with white pepper, coarse sea salt, and a pinch of sugar.
Finally, add 2 drops of garlic 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.

Shallot + garlictop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,000 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Shallot + lemontop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,523 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Lemon + garlictop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,893 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Garlic + vinegartop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,115 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Shallot + vinegartop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,374 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

Shallot: Provides a mild aromatic onion flavour that builds the base of the sauce.
Coulis: Adds body and thickness, setting the sauce's consistency.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances richness.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shallot, lemon, sugar, garlic, vinegar):

Tarragonfits better
Capersfits better
Parsleyfits better
White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, lemon, sugar, garlic, vinegar. 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.