Name: Wow Wow Sauce for Stewed or Bouilli Beef
Ingredients: 1 egg-sized piece of butter; 1 tablespoon fine flour; ½ pint beef broth; 1 tablespoon vinegar; 1 tablespoon mushroom catsup or port wine; 1 teaspoon prepared mustard; finely chopped parsley leaves; 2-3 pickled cucumbers or walnuts, quartered and diced

Why it works: Beef and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,232 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Wow Wow Sauce for Stewed or Bouilli Beef

Ingredients

1 egg-sized piece of butter
1 tablespoon fine flour
½ pint beef broth
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 tablespoon mushroom catsup or port wine
1 teaspoon prepared mustard
finely chopped parsley leaves
2-3 pickled cucumbers or walnuts, quartered and diced

Directions

Make the sauce

Melt the butter in a saucepan.
Stir in the flour until combined.
Add the beef broth and bring to a simmer.
Mix in the vinegar, mushroom catsup or port wine, and mustard.
Simmer until the sauce thickens to your desired consistency.

Finish and serve

Add the chopped parsley and diced pickles or walnuts before serving.

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.

Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,232 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Mustard + parsleytop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,588 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Mushroom + parsleytop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,132 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter: Enriches the sauce and carries flavour as the base of the roux.
Fine flour: Thickens the sauce when cooked with the butter and then the broth.
Beef broth: Forms the liquid body of the sauce and supplies savoury depth.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that sharpens the sauce and balances its richness.
Pickled cucumbers or walnuts: Add crunch and a tangy, bitter-sharp contrast to the smooth sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer until the sauce thickens. Flour thickens only as it cooks in hot liquid, so the sauce must simmer long enough for the starch to swell. Stopping early leaves it thin, while overcooking can make it stiff as it reduces.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, flour, beef, vinegar, mushroom, parsley):

Shallotfits better
Chivefits better
Asparagusfits better
Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, flour, beef, vinegar, mushroom, 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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Wow Wow Sauce for Stewed or Bouilli Beef