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Poivrade Sauce

A sauce made from butter, mirepoix, vinegar, Marinade, Espagnole sauce, and peppercorns.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Poivrade Sauce

Why it works: Butter and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Poivrade Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce base

  1. Heat the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the Mirepoix and fry until well browned.

  3. Moisten with vinegar and Marinade, then reduce to two-thirds.

  4. Add the Espagnole Sauce and cook for 45 minutes.

  5. Ten minutes before straining, add the crushed peppercorns.

Strain and finish

  1. Strain the sauce through a strainer, pressing the aromatics.

  2. Add another ½ pint of Marinade and remove scum while simmering for 15 minutes.

  3. Strain again through a fine cloth and finish with 2 ounces of butter.

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. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Butter + vinegartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Vinegar + saucetop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,844 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Mirepoix
Browned vegetables build deep, savoury flavour in the sauce base.
Espagnole sauce
Provides the rich, thickened brown sauce body that the sauce is built on.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens and balances the rich, savoury flavours.
Butter
Adds fat that gives the finished sauce a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Fry the Mirepoix until well browned. Browning creates deep, roasted flavour through the Maillard reaction and caramelisation. Pale vegetables leave the sauce tasting flat, and the colour and flavour built here carry through the whole sauce.

“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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