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Sauce

Italian Sauce

A sauce made with duxelles, ham, tomato, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Chervil and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 824 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Italian Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Combine the duxelles, chopped ham, and half-glaze tomato in a stewpan.

  2. Boil for 10 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Just before serving, stir in the minced parsley, chervil, and tarragon.

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. Chervil + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together824 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Parsley + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Parsley + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together774 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Tomato + tarragontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together391 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Duxelles
Adds concentrated mushroom flavour and body to the sauce.
Cooked ham
Contributes savoury, meaty flavour to the sauce.
Half-glaze tomato
Forms the liquid base and adds tomato flavour and richness.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, parsley, chervil, tarragon):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, parsley, chervil, tarragon. 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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