Name: Poivrade Sauce, for Cold Meat
Ingredients: 6 shallots, finely chopped; a handful of parsley, picked and washed; 1 tablespoon vinegar; 1 teaspoon mustard; ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper; ½ cup oil; ½ cup cold gravy; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt

Why it works: Shallot and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 859 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Poivrade Sauce, for Cold Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Finely chop the shallots and parsley.

Make the sauce

In a bowl, mix the shallots and parsley with vinegar, mustard, cayenne, oil, cold gravy, and salt, then stir until well combined.

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.

Shallot + mustardtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together859 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,737 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Parsley + mustardtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,588 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Shallots: Provide a sharp, savoury aromatic base that flavours the sauce.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the rich oil and gravy.
Oil: Supplies fat that gives the sauce a smooth, rich body.
Cold gravy: Adds savoury depth and body to the sauce.
Mustard: Adds sharpness and helps emulsify the oil into the sauce.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shallot, vinegar, mustard, pepper):

Tarragonfits better
Capersfits better
Dillfits about as well
Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, vinegar, mustard, pepper. 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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Poivrade Sauce, for Cold Meat