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Sauce Bordelaise

A rich sauce made with Espagnole, claret, shallots, herbs, and glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 824 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Sauce Bordelaise

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine the claret and shallots, and bring to a boil.

  2. Add the Espagnole sauce and glaze, then simmer gently for about 25 minutes.

  3. If the sauce is too thick, add a little stock; if too thin, boil with the lid off.

  4. Skim well, then add the chopped herbs and season carefully.

Finish

  1. The sauce should be thick enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon and run off again.

  2. Do not strain this 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. Tarragon + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together824 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Shallot + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together266 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Shallot + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together602 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Parsley + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Espagnole sauce
Forms the thick, savoury body of the sauce.
Claret
Adds acidity and wine flavour that reduces into the sauce.
Glaze
Adds concentrated meaty depth and body to the sauce.
Shallot
Contributes a mild, sweet aromatic base to the sauce.

The step that matters

Judging the thickness. Sauces thicken as they simmer and reduce, so adding too much stock or boiling too hard can throw off the balance. Checking that the sauce coats the back of a spoon and runs off cleanly shows it has reached the right concentration before serving.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, shallot, gelatin, tarragon, chervil, pepper, sugar):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Fennelfits about as well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, shallot, gelatin, tarragon, chervil, pepper, 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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