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Sauce Italienne

A sauce made from espagnole, shallots, mushrooms, thyme, bay leaf, sweet oil, wine, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,476 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Sauce Italienne

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the shallots

  1. Peel the shallots and finely chop them.

  2. Wrap the shallots in a clean cloth, hold them under cold water, then squeeze out the water.

Make the sauce

  1. Heat the oil in a small saucepan and add the shallots.

  2. Stir the shallots for a few minutes without coloring.

  3. Add the wine, chopped mushrooms, herbs, and stock to the saucepan and let the mixture reduce well.

  4. Stir in the espagnole sauce and boil the sauce for 10 minutes.

  5. Remove the herbs from the sauce and strain the sauce.

  6. Keep the sauce hot in a bain-marie until serving.

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  3. Mushroom + thymetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Sauce + shallottop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,303 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sauce + mushroomtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,480 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

Espagnole sauce
Forms the base of the sauce, giving body and a rich savory flavor.
Shallots
Add mild aromatic sweetness that builds the flavor base without browning.
Chablis or sauterne
Adds acidity and wine flavor as it reduces into the sauce.
Preserved mushrooms
Contribute earthy flavor and savory depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir the shallots without coloring. Shallots that brown turn bitter and dark, which would muddy the sauce's pale color and clean flavor. Gentle cooking over moderate heat softens them and releases their sweetness.

Swap the thyme

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Thymethe original
  4. Garlicfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, shallot, mushroom. 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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