Name: A Sauce
Ingredients: 1 pint vinegar; 2 shallots or heads of garlic; 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper; 3 tablespoons Indian soy or mushroom ketchup; 2 tablespoons walnut pickle

Why it works: Shallot and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,960 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: tree nuts, soy (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

1 pint vinegar
2 shallots or heads of garlic
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
3 tablespoons Indian soy or mushroom ketchup
2 tablespoons walnut pickle

Directions

Make the sauce

Mix together the vinegar, shallots or garlic, cayenne pepper, Indian soy or mushroom ketchup, and walnut pickle.

Steep and bottle

Let the mixture stand for a week, shaking it daily.
Strain the mixture and bottle it for use.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Shallot + mushroomtop 3% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together1,960 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).
Shallot + walnuttop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together435 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).
Pepper + mushroomtop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together13,578 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Vinegar + shallottop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlaplow

Mentioned together2,282 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Vinegar + peppertop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together27,805 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Vinegar: Provides acidity that preserves the sauce and gives it its sharp, tangy character.
Shallots or garlic: Adds pungent aromatic flavour that mellows and infuses the liquid during standing.
Cayenne pepper: Supplies heat and sharp pungency to the sauce.
Indian soy or mushroom ketchup: Adds savoury depth and umami richness.
Walnut pickle: Contributes the characteristic walnut flavour and dark colour.

Flavor stand-ins for the walnut

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

Peasbetter flavor fit
Sesamebetter flavor fit
Beansbetter flavor fit
Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, shallot, pepper, mushroom. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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.