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Sauce

D’Orleans, Sauce a LA

A French sauce made with vinegar, Espagnole sauce, butter, sugar, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and sugar match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,147 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

D’Orleans, Sauce a LA

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Bring vinegar to a boil.

  2. Add Espagnole sauce and let it warm.

  3. Gradually work in the butter.

  4. Stir in the sugar and parsley.

Serve

  1. Serve 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. Sauce + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

  4. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Vinegar + parsleytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,477 recipes

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

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the richness of the butter and sauce.
Espagnole sauce
Provides the savory, full-bodied base of the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat that emulsifies into a smooth, glossy, rich texture.
Caster sugar
Adds a light sweetness that rounds out the sharpness of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Gradually work in the butter. Butter must be added a little at a time so it emulsifies into the warm liquid. Adding it all at once or letting the sauce get too hot can make it separate and look greasy.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, sauce, butter, sugar):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sauce, butter, sugar. 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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