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Genevese Sauce

A savory sauce made with onion, carrot, herbs, mushrooms, bay leaf, mace, butter, sherry, stock, flour, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and sherry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,176 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Genevese Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Slice the onion and carrot.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the onion, carrot, herbs, mushrooms, bay leaf, and mace.

  3. Add the butter and simmer slowly over low heat until the onion is tender.

Simmer and strain

  1. Stir in the sherry and stock, and simmer gently for 1 hour.

  2. Strain the mixture into another saucepan.

Thicken and finish

  1. Make a thickening by mixing butter and flour, then stir it into the sauce.

  2. Bring to a boil, stirring until smooth, then add the juice of the lemon.

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. Mushroom + sherrytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,176 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Carrot + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Carrot + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,796 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the sauce a rounded, smooth mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the sauce when cooked with butter, giving it body.
White stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, carrying the flavour of the vegetables.
Sherry
Adds aroma and a touch of sweetness and acidity to the sauce.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce. Flour must be cooked with the butter and stirred in while the sauce is hot and moving; otherwise it clumps and stays floury instead of forming a smooth, thickened sauce.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, carrot, mushroom, butter, sherry, flour, lemon):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, carrot, mushroom, butter, sherry, flour, lemon. 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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