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Plain Ravigotte Sauce

A tart sauce made with tarragon vinegar, chili sauce, Harvey's sauce, butter, and herbs, served with boiled fowl or fish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 824 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Plain Ravigotte Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine tarragon vinegar, chili sauce, and Harvey's sauce in a small saucepan.

  2. Boil down the mixture until it reduces to half the quantity.

  3. Add the good butter sauce and chopped herbs.

  4. Stir well and serve with boiled fowl or fish.

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. Tarragon + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together824 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Chervil + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together370 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Tarragon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Tarragon + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together589 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Chervil + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together774 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Tarragon vinegar
Adds a sharp, aromatic acidity that gives the sauce its characteristic flavor.
Chili sauce
Adds sweetness, acidity and a spiced warmth to the reduced base.
Harvey's sauce
Contributes a savory, concentrated depth of flavor to the reduction.
Good butter sauce
Forms the rich, creamy body of the finished sauce.
Chopped blanched tarragon
Adds fresh herbal aroma and flavor to the sauce.

The step that matters

Boil down the mixture to half. Reducing the vinegar and sauces concentrates their acidity and flavor so they can stand up to the rich butter sauce. If the reduction is too short, the sauce tastes thin and sharp; if it goes too far, it becomes overly intense and salty-tasting.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tarragon, vinegar, sauce, butter, chervil, chive):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Thymefits less well
  4. Dillfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against tarragon, vinegar, sauce, butter, chervil, chive. 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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