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Venetian Sauce

A sauce made with shallots, chervil, white wine, tarragon vinegar, and white wine sauce, finished with herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Venetian Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine the chopped shallots, chervil, white wine, and tarragon vinegar.

  2. Reduce the mixture by two-thirds over medium heat.

  3. Add the white wine sauce and boil for a few minutes.

  4. Strain the sauce through a fine sieve.

Finish

  1. Finish the sauce with herb juice and stir in the chopped 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. Shallot + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together266 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Shallot + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together602 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. White wine + tarragontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together409 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

What each ingredient does

White wine sauce
Forms the base body of the sauce, giving it its main richness and flavor.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity and sharp aroma, which reduce to a concentrated flavor.
White wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth as it reduces into the sauce.
Shallots
Contribute a mild oniony sweetness and aroma during reduction.

The step that matters

Reducing the mixture by two-thirds. Reduction concentrates flavors and thickens the liquid. Over-reducing can make the sauce too intense or salty, while under-reducing leaves it thin and weakly flavored.

“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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