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Eschalot Sauce for Boiled Mutton

A sauce made from minced eschalots, mutton liquor, vinegar, pepper, salt, and butter rolled in flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Eschalot Sauce for Boiled Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine the minced eschalots and the mutton liquor in a small saucepan.

  2. Bring to a boil and let it simmer for 5 minutes.

  3. Add the vinegar, pepper, salt, and the butter rolled in flour.

  4. Stir together until it boils.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Walnut + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + walnuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,039 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Walnut + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eschalots
Provide the main aromatic flavour base of the sauce as they soften and sweeten while simmering.
Butter rolled in flour
Thickens the liquid as the flour starch swells on boiling, giving the sauce body and a smooth texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens and balances the rich flavour of the mutton liquor.

The step that matters

Stir the butter and flour in until it boils. Flour-coated butter must be whisked in and brought fully to a boil so the starch gelatinises and thickens the sauce; otherwise it stays thin or turns lumpy.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, vinegar, pepper, butter, flour):

  1. Almondfits about as well
  2. Beansfits about as well
  3. Walnutthe original
  4. Chestnutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, vinegar, pepper, butter, flour. 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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