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Sauce Bordelaise

A rich sauce made with onion, fat, beef gravy, wine, pepper, salt, parsley, and browned flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Sauce Bordelaise

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Brown the chopped onion in fat or butter.

  2. Add the beef gravy and wine, then season with pepper, salt, and parsley.

  3. Simmer the mixture until it thickens, adding browned flour as needed.

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

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

  2. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  3. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef gravy
Provides the savory meaty base and body of the sauce.
Claret or white wine
Adds acidity and depth, balancing the richness of the gravy.
Browned flour
Thickens the sauce as it simmers, giving it body and a slightly nutty color.
Onion
Softens and browns in fat, adding sweetness and aromatic flavor.
Fat or butter
Carries the browning of the onion and adds richness.

The step that matters

Simmering until it thickens. Thickening depends on the browned flour being fully cooked into the liquid as it simmers. Adding it too quickly or not simmering long enough can leave lumps or a thin, raw-tasting sauce.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, beef, white wine, pepper, parsley, flour. 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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