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Ravigote Sauce

A tangy sauce made with butter, flour, lemon juice, parsley, pepper, salt, milk, tarragon vinegar, chili, Worcestershire sauce, and shallots.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Ravigote Sauce

Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Ravigote Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Work the butter and flour into a paste.

  2. Add the lemon juice, parsley, pepper, and salt.

  3. Put the paste into a saucepan with the milk.

  4. Stir until it reaches boiling point.

Make the flavouring and finish

  1. In another saucepan, combine the tarragon vinegar, chili, Worcestershire sauce, and shallots.

  2. Boil for 3-4 minutes.

  3. Add the sauce to it.

  4. Strain.

  5. Serve.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Lemon + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the sauce and, with flour, forms the paste that thickens it.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce as its starch swells when heated.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens into a creamy sauce.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity and sharp aroma that cut through the richness of the butter and milk.
Shallots
Add a mild onion-like sharpness that is softened by the boiling liquid.

The step that matters

Stir until it reaches boiling point. Flour thickens milk only once its starch granules swell and gelatinise when hot. Stopping too early leaves the sauce thin, while stirring constantly prevents lumps from forming on the base of the pan.

“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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