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German Sauce

A pickled sauce made from green tomatoes, cabbage, onions, spices, vinegar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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German Sauce

Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

German Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Combine and cook

  1. In a large pot, combine the chopped green tomatoes, cabbage, and onions.

  2. Add the celery seed, white mustard seed, black pepper, cloves, allspice, and coarse sea salt.

  3. Stir in the brown sugar and vinegar.

  4. Boil the mixture for 15 minutes.

Salt and rest

  1. Sprinkle the salt over the chopped vegetables.

  2. Let the mixture stand overnight.

Drain and finish

  1. Drain the mixture through a sieve.

  2. Add the vinegar and spices back to the mixture.

  3. Boil again.

  4. Put the sauce into glass jars.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Form the bulk of the sauce and supply tart, fresh flavour as they cook down.
Cabbage
Adds bulk and body, softening as it cooks into a thick sauce.
Onions
Add savoury depth and sweetness as they soften during cooking.
Vinegar
Provides sharp acidity that balances the sugar and brightens the sauce.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a molasses note that rounds out the acidity.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the vegetables, softening them and concentrating their flavour.

The step that matters

Let the mixture stand overnight. Salt draws water out of the chopped vegetables by osmosis. Standing overnight lets this happen fully, so draining removes that liquid and the sauce thickens instead of staying watery.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, onion, celery, mustard, pepper, clove, allspice):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, onion, celery, mustard, pepper, clove, allspice. 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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