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Sauce

Robert Sauce

A pork sauce made with onions, bay leaf, peppercorns, cloves, tomato, brown sauce, mustard, cayenne, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Robert Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Fry the minced onions with the bay leaf, crushed peppercorns, cloves, and tomato until rich brown.

  2. Add the brown sauce and bring to a boil, then skim well.

  3. Simmer for 10 minutes, then strain the sauce through a tammy or sieve.

Finish and serve

  1. Return the sauce to the pan and stir in the French mustard, cayenne, and French vinegar.

  2. Reheat and serve with pork.

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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  2. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Clove + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,829 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,482 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Brown sauce
Forms the base of the sauce, providing most of its body and savoury flavour.
Minced onions
Frying until rich brown builds deep, sweet-savoury flavour that carries into the sauce.
Tomato
Adds acidity and savoury depth as it fries with the onions.
French vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that brightens the rich, heavy brown sauce.
French mustard
Adds sharpness and a pungent note that balances the richness of the sauce.

The step that matters

Frying the onions until rich brown. Onions and tomato need enough time to brown so the Maillard reaction builds deep flavour; pale onions leave the sauce tasting flat and raw.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, tomato, sauce, mustard, vinegar):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, tomato, sauce, mustard, vinegar. 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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