Why it works: Olive and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,568 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Olive Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the olives
Soak the olives in cold water for 30 minutes to remove the salt.
Chop half of the olives finely and leave the rest whole.
Make the sauce
Add the chopped and whole olives to the brown sauce.
Simmer the mixture for 10 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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Olive + saucetop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together5,568 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
- Olives
- Provide the main savoury flavour and a briny, slightly salty bite that contrasts with rich duck.
- Brown sauce
- Forms the body of the sauce and carries the olive flavour across the dish.
“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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