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Sauce

Hungarian Sauce

A sauce made with onions, salt, paprika, wine, herbs, velouté, and butter, simmered and strained.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: White wine and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,083 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Hungarian Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Gently fry the chopped onions in butter without coloring them.

  2. Season with coarse sea salt and paprika.

  3. Moisten with white wine and add the bundle of herbs.

  4. Reduce the wine by two-thirds and remove the herbs.

  5. Add the velouté and boil moderately for five minutes.

  6. Rub the sauce through a fine sieve.

  7. Finish by stirring in the butter until melted.

  8. Ensure the sauce maintains a delicate pink shade.

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. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Onion + white winetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,535 recipes

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

  3. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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, giving it a rounded, smooth mouthfeel when stirred in at the end.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma, and its reduction concentrates flavour before the velouté is added.
Velouté
Serves as the base sauce, providing body and thickness for the finished dish.
Onions
Provide a sweet, aromatic foundation when gently fried in butter without browning.

The step that matters

Reduce the wine by two-thirds. Reducing the wine concentrates its acidity and aroma so they carry through the sauce. Under-reducing leaves it thin and sharp, while over-reducing can make the flavour harsh.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white wine, butter):

  1. Onionthe original
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Leekfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, butter. 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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