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Sauce

Orleans Sauce

A reduced sherry or madeira sauce flavored with truffle essence and cayenne, finished with Espagnole sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sherry and truffle work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 297 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Orleans Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a stewpan, combine sherry or madeira, essence of truffles, and cayenne pepper.

  2. Reduce the mixture to half its original quantity.

  3. Add a ladleful of finished Espagnole sauce and let it boil for five minutes.

  4. Pass the sauce through a tamis into a bain-marie for use.

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. Sherry + truffletop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together297 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Sherry + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  3. Truffle + saucetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,490 recipes
  4. Sherry + saucetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Truffle + peppertop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,106 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Sherry or madeira
Adds acidity and sweet, wine-based depth as it reduces into the sauce.
Essence of truffles
Contributes a concentrated earthy aroma that flavours the sauce.
Finished espagnole sauce
Forms the sauce base, giving body and a savoury foundation.

The step that matters

Reducing the wine and truffle mixture. Reducing concentrates the flavours and evaporates alcohol, so the sherry or madeira tastes mellow rather than sharp. Stopping too early leaves the base thin and harsh, while over-reducing can make the sauce too intense before the Espagnole is added.

“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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