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Sauce

Sauce for Cold Fowl, or Partridge

A sauce made from mashed egg yolks, anchovy, oil, vinegar, shallot, cayenne pepper, and mustard for cold fowl.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 859 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Sauce for Cold Fowl, or Partridge

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a mortar, mash the egg yolks, anchovy, oil, vinegar, shallot, and Cayenne until well combined.

  2. Add the mustard and mix thoroughly.

  3. Strain the sauce 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.

  1. Shallot + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together859 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + shallottop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Hard-boiled egg yolks
Their fat and fine texture give the sauce body and a smooth, creamy base.
Anchovy
Adds savory depth, giving the sauce a salty, umami note without tasting distinctly fishy.
Oil
Adds fat that carries flavour and helps emulsify the mashed yolks into a smooth sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich yolks and oil and balances the sauce.
Mustard
Its emulsifying compounds help bind the oil and yolk and add a sharp, pungent bite.

The step that matters

Mash the yolks thoroughly with the oil and vinegar. Egg yolks and oil form a stable emulsion only when the yolks are well broken down and worked into the oil and acid. Thorough mashing gives a smooth, cohesive sauce instead of a greasy or grainy one.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, anchovy, vinegar, pepper, mustard):

  1. Horseradishfits about as well
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Lettucefits about as well
  4. Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, anchovy, vinegar, pepper, mustard. 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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