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Sauces for Roast Fowls

A sauce for roast fowls made by stewing ham, veal, mushrooms, herbs, shallot, allspice, butter, and broth, then straining and seasoning.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and shallot are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,982 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Sauces for Roast Fowls

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy

  1. In a pot, stew ham, veal, and mushrooms with sweet herbs, shallot, allspice, and butter until browned.

  2. Add weak broth or water and let simmer gently until a strong gravy forms.

  3. Strain the mixture and season with additional flavoring sauces if desired.

Serve

  1. Serve hot in a sauce tureen.

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. Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  2. Shallot + allspicetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together386 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Veal + mushroomtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,446 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Shallot + saucetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,303 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
Provides savory, meaty flavor that builds the body of the gravy.
Veal
Adds gelatin-rich body and savory depth to the gravy as it simmers.
Mushrooms
Contribute earthy savoriness and moisture that deepen the gravy's flavor.
Butter
Adds fat and helps the meats and mushrooms brown for richer flavor.

The step that matters

Browning the ham, veal, and mushrooms in butter. Browning creates deep flavors through the Maillard reaction. If the meats and mushrooms are pale or steamed rather than browned, the finished gravy will taste flat and lack color.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, veal, mushroom, shallot, butter, sauce):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, veal, mushroom, shallot, butter, 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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