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Sauce

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

Prepare the base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped peppers and onion, and cook until softened.

Make the sauce

  1. Stir in the brown sauce and stewed tomatoes, and simmer for 10 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture.

  3. Gradually add the strained mixture back to the butter and peppers.

  4. Mix 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
Adds fat and rich flavor to the base and helps the vegetables soften gently.
Brown sauce
Provides the main body and savory depth of the sauce.
Stewed tomatoes
Adds acidity and fruity sweetness that balance the rich brown sauce.
Capers
Contribute sharp, briny acidity that brightens the sauce.
Mushrooms
Add earthy, savory flavor that deepens the sauce.

The step that matters

Gradually add the strained mixture back to the butter and peppers. Adding the hot liquid slowly and stirring keeps the mixture smooth and prevents lumps or separation, because the fat and liquid combine more evenly when the temperature rises gradually.

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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