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Espagnole Sauce

A brown sauce made with trotters, ham, beef, onions, vegetables, herbs, and a roux, simmered and strained.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Espagnole Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. In a stew-pan, melt butter and fry onions until golden yellow.

  2. Add broth or water and prepared meat.

  3. Shake the pan occasionally.

  4. Cover the meat with water.

  5. Reduce heat.

  6. Bring to a slow boil, skimming off grease.

  7. Once clear, add cold water, carrots, turnip, celery, garlic, peppercorns, herbs, parsley, burnt sugar, and salt.

  8. Cook vegetables.

  9. Remove from heat.

  10. Strain the gravy, aiming for 1½ pints.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt 2 ounces of butter.

  2. Stir in 2 ounces of flour to make a roux.

  3. Gradually add the strained gravy.

  4. Stir until well combined.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 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 meat
Releases flavour and body into the gravy as it simmers slowly.
Sheep's trotters
Add gelatin, giving the finished gravy body and a silky mouthfeel.
Onions
Browning in butter builds deep, sweet flavour in the base of the sauce.
Flour (in the method)
Thickens the strained gravy when cooked with butter into a roux.
Butter
Carries flavour in the base and enriches the roux that thickens the sauce.

The step that matters

Skimming while the stock comes to a slow boil. Grease and scum rising from the meat cloud the gravy and can taste heavy. Skimming keeps it clear, and a slow boil stops the liquid from emulsifying into a murky stock.

Swap the turnip

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, beef, meat, onion, butter, carrot, celery):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Turnipthe original
  4. Tomatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, beef, meat, onion, butter, carrot, celery. 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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