Skip to main content
Sauce

Cider Sauce

A sauce made from cider, brown sauce, cloves, bay leaf, salt, and pepper, simmered and strained.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Cider Sauce

Why it works: Clove and pepper 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 ↓

Cider Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Simmer the cider, brown sauce, cloves, bay leaf, salt, and pepper until reduced to the desired consistency.

  2. Strain the mixture through a fine strainer or cheesecloth.

  3. Reheat the sauce and serve as a substitute for champagne sauce with braised ham or duck.

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 + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Cider + clovetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,683 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Cider + peppertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,234 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  4. Sauce + peppertop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,303 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sauce + clovetop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,089 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,303 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

Cider
Provides the liquid and mild acidity that forms the base of the sauce and reduces to concentrate its flavour.
Brown sauce
Adds depth, savoury body and colour to the sauce as it simmers and reduces.
Cloves
Contribute a warm, aromatic spice note that infuses the liquid during simmering.
Bay leaf
Adds a subtle herbal aroma that infuses the sauce during simmering.

The step that matters

Simmer until reduced to the desired consistency. Reduction concentrates flavour and thickens the liquid as water evaporates. Stopping too early leaves the sauce thin and watery, while reducing too far makes it salty and overly intense.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cider, sauce, pepper):

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Allspicefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, sauce, pepper. 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.

More cider sauce recipes

Apple 18 See all 16 →

You might also like

Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)186 recipesCaper SauceCaper Sauce180 recipesBrown SauceBrown Sauce141 recipesDutch SauceDutch Sauce74 recipes