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Spanish Sauce

A sauce made with butter, peppers, onion, brown sauce, stewed tomatoes, capers, and mushrooms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Spanish Sauce

Why it works: Tomato and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,719 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Spanish Sauce

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the chopped peppers and onion; cook until soft.

  3. Stir in the brown sauce and stewed tomatoes; cook for 10 minutes.

  4. Strain the mixture and add it slowly to the butter and peppers.

  5. Finally, stir in the capers and mushrooms.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Tomato + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,719 recipes

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

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Onion + caperstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,381 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Tomato + caperstop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together568 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the sauce with fat and carries flavor from the softened vegetables.
Peppers
Soften in the butter to add sweetness and savory body to the sauce.
Brown sauce
Forms the base of the sauce, providing most of its savory depth and body.
Stewed tomatoes
Add acidity and moisture, balancing the richness of the brown sauce.
Mushrooms
Add earthy savory flavor and a tender texture to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the strained mixture slowly to the butter and peppers. Adding liquid gradually while stirring keeps the mixture smooth and prevents lumps, because a sudden large addition can cause the starch and fat to separate unevenly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, sauce, tomato, capers, mushroom):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, sauce, tomato, capers, mushroom. 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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