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Orleans Sauce

A sauce made from diced carrot, anchovies, egg whites, gherkins, and Poivrade sauce, simmered gently.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 24% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,509 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Orleans Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the garnish

  1. Cut the carrot, anchovies, egg whites, and gherkins into small square dice.

  2. Place them in a small bain-marie.

Make the sauce

  1. Add the Poivrade sauce and gently boil for 5 minutes.

  2. Serve this sauce with braised meats.

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. Carrot + saucetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,509 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Carrot + eggtop 35% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Egg + saucetop 39% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,895 recipes

Egg and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,895 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

Poivrade sauce
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, carrying the diced garnish through the dish.
Hard-boiled egg whites
Add firm, mild texture and body to the diced garnish.
Anchovies
Add a salty, savoury depth that rounds out the sauce.
Green gherkins
Contribute acidity and a crisp bite that cuts through the rich sauce.

The step that matters

Gently boil for 5 minutes. Boiling vigorously can break down the diced pieces and cloud the sauce. A gentle simmer keeps the garnish intact while warming it through and letting the flavours meld.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sauce. 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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