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Stock Sauces

A savory sauce made by simmering ham, veal, and other meats with stock, then reducing to a glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Stock Sauces

Ingredients

Directions

Start the glaze

  1. Melt fresh butter in a stewpan and add sliced ham.

  2. Add an equal amount of veal to the stewpan.

  3. For brown sauce, add whole wild rabbits.

  4. For white sauce, add old hens.

  5. Pour enough grand stock into each pan to cover the veal.

  6. Cover the pans.

  7. Boil sharply until the broth reduces to a glaze.

  8. Reduce heat by adding charcoal ashes.

  9. Return pans to the fire.

Finish the sauces

  1. For brown sauce, add 1 pound of glaze to the stock.

  2. Reduce together.

  3. For white sauce, when reduced to pale glaze, fill with grand stock.

  4. Garnish white sauce with carrot, onion, cloves, mace, and bouquet.

  5. Boil and skim well.

  6. Simmer gently.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Clove + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Adds body and savory depth to the stock, building the glaze's flavor.
Lean ham
Contributes salty, savory flavor that deepens the sauce as it reduces.
Grand stock
Forms the liquid base that reduces into a concentrated glaze.
Glaze
Adds concentrated gelatin and flavor, giving the brown sauce body and sheen.
Wild rabbits
Provide rich meaty flavor to the brown sauce during long simmering.

The step that matters

Boil sharply until the broth reduces to a glaze. Reducing too slowly or too gently fails to concentrate the broth, while boiling too hard can scorch the solids. Gelatin from bones and meat thickens as water evaporates, so the reduction must be watched closely.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, veal, rabbit, carrot, onion, clove, parsley):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, veal, rabbit, carrot, onion, clove, parsley. 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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