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Sauce

Currant Jelly Sauce

A savory sauce made with butter, onion, flour, stock, vinegar, bay leaf, clove, and currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Currant Jelly Sauce

Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Currant Jelly Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a small saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the onion and cook for 5 minutes until softened.

  3. Stir in the flour and cook until smooth.

  4. Gradually add the stock while stirring continuously.

  5. Once the sauce boils, add the salt, pepper, vinegar, bay leaf, clove, and currant jelly.

  6. Simmer for 5 minutes, then strain and serve hot.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Vinegar + curranttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together693 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

Butter
Adds fat and richness to the sauce base.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth, coating sauce.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and fruity flavour that balances the savoury base.

The step that matters

Gradually add the stock while stirring continuously. Adding liquid slowly while stirring keeps the flour dispersed, so the sauce thickens smoothly instead of forming lumps.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Currantthe original

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