Reform Sauce

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. Port wine + red curranttop 10% of all pairs
   Smell alikemoderate
   Cooked together118 recipes

   Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

2. Pepper + red curranttop 11% of all pairs
   Smell alikemoderate
   Cooked together267 recipes

   Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

3. Pepper + port winetop 19% of all pairs
   Smell alikemoderate
   Cooked together1,804 recipes

   Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

4. Sauce + port winetop 24% of all pairs
   Smell alikelow
   Cooked together424 recipes

   Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

5. Pepper + saucetop 27% of all pairs
   Smell alikelow
   Cooked together15,303 recipes

   Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Pepper and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,303 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Pepper sauce

Forms the base of the sauce and provides most of its volume and flavour.

Port wine

Adds sweetness and depth of flavour, and some acidity, to the sauce.

Red currant jelly

Adds sweetness and body, and helps round out the sharpness of the sauce.

Swap the red currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, sauce, port wine):

1. Figfits better
2. Plumfits better
3. Limefits about as well
4. Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, sauce, port wine. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.