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Sauce

Spanish Sauce, Brown; or Espagnole

A brown sauce made with lean ham, veal, stock, and parsley, simmered and strained.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and veal are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,264 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Spanish Sauce, Brown; or Espagnole

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Chop the lean ham and veal into small pieces.

  2. In a pot, combine the ham, veal, and stock.

Simmer and serve

  1. Simmer the mixture over low heat for about 1 hour.

  2. Add the parsley and continue to simmer for an additional 10 minutes.

  3. Strain the sauce to remove solids 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. Ham + vealtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,264 recipes

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

  2. Veal + parsleytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,766 recipes

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

  3. Ham + parsleytop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,249 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

Veal
Breaks down during long simmering to give body and savoury depth to the sauce.
Lean ham
Adds salty, savoury flavour that seasons the stock as it simmers.
Stock
Forms the liquid base that carries flavour and gives the sauce its body.
Parsley
Adds a fresh, herbal aroma to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer gently over low heat. A low, steady simmer extracts flavour and gelatin from the meat without clouding the liquid. Boiling vigorously emulsifies fat and fragments solids, making the sauce cloudy and greasy.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, veal):

  1. Celeryfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Pepperfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, veal. 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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