Skip to main content
Sauce

Robert Sauce

A savory sauce made with onions, butter, wine, brown sauce, mustard, anchovy sauce, and glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sauce and anchovy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Robert Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Dice the onions and fry them in the butter for 15 minutes.

  2. Add the wine and boil gently for 4 minutes.

  3. Stir in the brown sauce and glaze, then boil gently for 20 minutes, skimming off the butter as it rises.

  4. Just before serving, stir in the mustard.

  5. Season with pepper and salt to taste.

  6. Optionally, substitute tarragon or plain vinegar for the wine for a sharper flavor.

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 + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 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 + white winetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,535 recipes

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

  5. Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 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

Onions
Softened by frying in butter, they build the sweet, savory base of the sauce.
Butter
Carries the frying of the onions and rises to the surface during simmering, where it is skimmed off.
French white wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the sauce as it reduces.
Brown sauce
Forms the body and main flavor of the sauce.
Glaze
Adds concentrated savory richness and depth to the sauce during simmering.
French mustard
Adds sharp flavor and a pungent note stirred in at the end.

The step that matters

Skimming off the butter during the long simmer. Butter that rises and is left on the surface can make the sauce greasy and split its texture. Skimming it off as it rises keeps the finished sauce smooth and clean-tasting.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

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

You might also like

Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)186 recipesMixed MustardMixed Mustard9 recipesWine Sauce for Sweet PuddingsWine Sauce for Sweet Puddings6 recipesCaper SauceCaper Sauce180 recipes