Why it works: Sauce and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Meat Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Slice the bacon and place it in a frying pan to render the fat, then remove the bacon once the fat is rendered.
Add the flour to the pan after the fat has browned and stir until smooth.
Gradually add the stock while stirring continuously until it boils.
Stir in the Worcestershire sauce, mushroom ketchup, salt, and pepper.
Add the mushrooms; if fresh, simmer for 15 minutes, or if canned, simmer for 5 minutes.
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.
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Sauce + ketchuptop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,099 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,580 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Flour + ketchuptop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,435 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Mushroom + ketchuptop 16% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,225 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,078 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Bacon
- Renders fat for frying and adds savory, smoky flavor to the sauce.
- Flour
- Thickens the sauce when cooked in the fat and stirred with the stock.
- Stock
- Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding body and savory depth.
- Mushrooms
- Add earthy flavor and texture, becoming tender as they simmer.
The step that matters
Adding the stock gradually. Adding liquid slowly while stirring constantly lets the flour disperse evenly. Adding it all at once can form lumps that are hard to smooth out.
“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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