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Another Poivrade Sauce

A savory sauce made with butter, onions, carrot, parsnip, garlic, shallots, cloves, herbs, flour, port wine, water, vinegar, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,097 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Another Poivrade Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the sliced onions, chopped carrot, chopped parsnip, minced garlic, minced shallots, cloves, thyme, basil, bay leaf, and flour.

  3. Moisten with port wine, water, and vinegar.

  4. Bring to a boil and let simmer for 30 minutes.

  5. Season with salt and pepper, then skim and strain the sauce.

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 + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Parsnip + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together270 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Parsnip + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together63 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the sauce with fat and carries the aromatics as they soften.
Onions
Build the sweet, savory base of the sauce as they soften and release their sugars.
Flour
Thickens the sauce slightly as it cooks with the liquids.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavor as it reduces during simmering.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens and balances the rich, sweet flavors.
Shallots
Add a mild, sweet onion aroma that deepens the sauce's flavor.

The step that matters

Simmering after the liquids are added. Simmering gently for the full 30 minutes lets the vegetables and aromatics release flavor and lets the flour thicken the liquid evenly. Boiling too hard can reduce the sauce too quickly and make it cloudy or overly concentrated.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion, carrot, parsnip, garlic, shallot, thyme):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, carrot, parsnip, garlic, shallot, thyme. 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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