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Sauce

Gratin Sauce

A sauce made with Espagnole, sherry, glaze, parsley, mushrooms, shallots, and anchovy essence.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Gratin Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the mushrooms into small pieces.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine the mushrooms, sherry, glaze, parsley, and shallots.

  2. Simmer until the mixture is considerably reduced.

  3. Add the Espagnole sauce and anchovy essence, and cook for 5 minutes.

  4. Serve hot.

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. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  2. Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  4. Sherry + mushroomtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,176 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + mushroomtop 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

Espagnole sauce
Forms the body of the sauce, giving it richness and a thick, coating texture.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aroma, and its reduction concentrates the flavour of the sauce.
Glaze
Adds concentrated meat flavour and body to the sauce.
Button mushrooms
Contribute savoury, earthy flavour and body to the sauce as they soften.

The step that matters

Simmer until the mixture is considerably reduced. Reducing the sherry, glaze and vegetables concentrates their flavour and evaporates excess liquid. Stopping too early leaves the sauce thin and weak, while over-reducing can make it overly salty or sticky.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, sherry, mushroom, shallot, anchovy):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, sherry, mushroom, shallot, anchovy. 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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