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Sauce

Sharp or Piquant Sauce

A vinegar-based sauce with shallots, gherkins, capers, bay leaf, thyme, and Espagnole sauce, reduced and boiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 405 recipes mention both. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Sharp or Piquant Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine the shallots, vinegar, bay leaf, and thyme in a stewpan, then cover and reduce the mixture to half the quantity.

  2. Strain the mixture into another stewpan.

  3. Add the gherkins, capers, and Espagnole sauce, then boil for a few minutes.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Shallot + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together405 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Capers + thymetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together309 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Capers + saucetop 11% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together678 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Shallot + vinegartop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together2,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Shallots
Add a mild, sweet onion flavour that builds the base of the sauce.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that gives the sauce its sharp, piquant character.
Gherkins
Add tangy, acidic bite and a crisp texture to the finished sauce.
Capers
Contribute sharp, salty acidity that reinforces the piquant flavour.
Espagnole sauce
Forms the rich, savoury body that the other flavours are added to.

The step that matters

Reducing the vinegar mixture. Reducing the shallot, vinegar, and herb mixture concentrates its acidity and flavour. Stopping at the right point matters, because too little reduction leaves the sauce sharp and thin, while too much makes it harsh and overly acidic.

Flavor stand-ins for the thyme

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shallot, capers, vinegar, sauce):

  1. Tarragonbetter flavor fit
  2. Parsleybetter flavor fit
  3. Dillabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Thymethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, capers, vinegar, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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