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Sauce

Piquante Sauce

A sauce made from shallots, gherkins, piccalilli, capers, bay leaf, thyme, wine vinegar, and Espagnole sauce, seasoned with pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Piquante Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine shallots, gherkins, piccalilli, capers, bay leaf, thyme, and wine vinegar.

  2. Cover and reduce the mixture to half its volume.

  3. Remove the herbs, then dilute with Espagnole sauce.

  4. Season with pepper, bring to a boil, and skim off any foam.

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  4. Capers + thymetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together309 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Thyme + winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,349 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

What each ingredient does

Shallots
Provide aromatic sweetness and savory base flavor as they soften during reduction.
French wine vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the sauce its sharp, piquant character.
Espagnole sauce
Forms the rich brown sauce body that the reduced mixture is diluted into.
Pickled gherkins
Contribute tangy acidity and a crisp, briny bite to the sauce.

The step that matters

Reduce the mixture to half its volume. Reducing concentrates the vinegar and aromatics so the flavor is intense enough to stand up when the Espagnole sauce is added. Covering the pan keeps evaporation gentle, so the mixture thickens without scorching or turning bitter.

Swap the thyme

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shallot, capers, wine, vinegar, sauce, pepper):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Thymethe original
  4. Garlicfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, capers, wine, vinegar, sauce, pepper. 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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