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Stock Sauces

A sauce made by simmering ham, veal, rabbits, hens, and spices in stock, then reducing to a glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Stock Sauces

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Grease the bottom of a stewpan with fresh butter.

  2. Layer sliced ham and veal in the pan.

  3. For brown sauce, add whole rabbits; for white sauce, add old hens.

  4. Pour enough grand stock to cover the veal.

Reduce to a glaze

  1. Cover the pans and boil sharply until the broth reduces to a glaze.

  2. Reduce heat by adding charcoal ashes, then return pans to the fire.

  3. For brown sauce, add glaze and reduce with stock for a redder hue.

  4. For white sauce, when reduced to pale glaze, fill with grand stock.

Finish and simmer

  1. Garnish with carrot, onion, cloves, mace, and bouquet; boil and skim well.

  2. Simmer gently at the side of the stove, monitoring the brown sauce to prevent burning.

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

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

  2. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Clove + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean ham
Adds savoury meaty flavour to the stock as it cooks down.
Veal
Contributes gelatin and meaty body, helping the stock set into a glaze.
Rabbits or carcasses
Adds rich meaty flavour to the brown sauce base.
Hens or carcasses of fowls
Adds rich poultry flavour to the white sauce base.
Grand stock
Provides the liquid that reduces into a concentrated, flavourful glaze.

The step that matters

Simmer gently and monitor the brown sauce. Concentrated meat and glaze solids scorch easily on the bottom of the pan, so gentle heat and watching the brown sauce prevent burning and off flavours.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, veal, rabbit, carrot, onion, clove, parsley):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, veal, rabbit, carrot, onion, clove, 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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