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Sauce

Green Sauce, for Green Geese, or Ducklings

A sauce made from sorrel juice, white wine, gooseberries, sugar, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: White wine and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,083 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Green Sauce, for Green Geese, or Ducklings

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix the sorrel juice, white wine, and scalded gooseberries in a saucepan.

  2. Add sugar and butter to the mixture.

  3. Boil the mixture until well combined.

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. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Sorrel + white winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sorrel + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together652 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sorrel + sugartop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together294 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Sorrel juice
Provides the tart, green, acidic flavour that defines the sauce.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma while thinning the sauce as it reduces.
Gooseberries
Supply tartness and body, breaking down into the sauce's pulp when scalded.
Butter
Adds richness and a smoother, rounder mouthfeel to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture until well combined. Boiling must be long enough to blend the butter and fruit into a single smooth sauce, but not so long that it reduces too thick. Stir to keep the butter from separating and scorching on the pan base.

Swap the sorrel

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white wine, sugar, butter):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Sorrelthe original
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, sugar, butter. 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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