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Genoa Sauce

A creamy sauce made from pistachios, nuts, Béchamel, egg yolks, oil, lemon, herbs, served with cold fish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Genoa Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Pound the pistachios and apple kernels (or almonds) in a mortar until smooth.

  2. Add the cold Béchamel sauce to the paste in a bowl.

  3. Incorporate the egg yolks, salt, and pepper into the mixture.

Emulsify and finish

  1. Gradually add the oil and lemon juice, mixing as you would for mayonnaise.

  2. Stir in the herb purée and mix well.

  3. Cool quickly, remove excess water, and strain through a fine sieve.

  4. Serve with cold fish.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Chervil + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together774 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + cherviltop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together358 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Act as the emulsifier that holds the oil and lemon juice together as a thick sauce.
Oil
Provides the fat that gives the sauce its rich, smooth body.
Pistachios
Form the ground nut paste that gives the sauce body and a nutty flavour.
Béchamel sauce
Adds body and thickness to the nut paste, giving the sauce a smoother texture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and cuts the richness of the oil.

The step that matters

Gradually add the oil and lemon juice. Adding oil too fast can break the emulsion, so the egg yolks cannot bind it and the sauce separates instead of turning thick and smooth.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pistachio, sauce, egg, pepper, lemon, chervil, parsley):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pistachio, sauce, egg, pepper, lemon, chervil, parsley. 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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