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Sauce

Espagnole Sauce

A brown French sauce made with carrot, onion, turnip, celery, ham or bacon, stock, tomatoes, sherry, butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Espagnole Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a stewpan, melt the butter with the bacon and vegetables (except the tomatoes) until browned.

  2. Add the flour and reduce the heat, frying until dark brown.

  3. Stir in the stock and bring to a boil, then add the tomatoes.

  4. Cook gently for 45 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the sherry, bring to a boil again, and strain through a fine cloth.

  2. Reheat and serve as needed.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Marjoram + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the sauce and, when fried to dark brown, adds color and a toasty flavor.
Butter
Carries the frying of the bacon and vegetables and adds richness to the sauce.
Stock
Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens and the vegetables flavor.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and body, balancing the richness of the butter and roux.
Bacon
Adds savory, salty depth as it browns with the vegetables.

The step that matters

Frying the flour until dark brown. Flour must cook long enough to lose its raw taste and develop color and nutty flavor, but if it burns it turns bitter and spoils the whole sauce.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, celery, ham, thyme, marjoram, parsley):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, celery, ham, thyme, marjoram, parsley. 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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