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Espagnole Sauce

A brown sauce made with tomato, dry sherry, and seasoning.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,469 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Espagnole Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare brown sauce as directed.

Finish the sauce

  1. Add the sliced tomato to the sauce.

  2. Cook the mixture.

  3. Strain it.

  4. Stir in the dry sherry.

  5. Season to taste.

  6. Serve.

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. Sauce + tomatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,469 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Tomato + sherrytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together492 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Sauce + sherrytop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Brown sauce
Forms the thickened base that gives the sauce its body.
Tomato
Adds acidity and flavour, and moisture that cooks into the sauce.
Dry sherry
Adds aroma and a sharp, winey flavour at the end.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, sherry):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Tomatothe original
  4. Horseradishfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, sherry. 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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