Name: Poor Mans Sauce.
Ingredients: 4 tablespoons minced shallots; ½ teaspoon salt; ¼ teaspoon black pepper; 2 tablespoons water; 3 tablespoons sharp vinegar

Why it works: Shallot and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,898 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Poor Mans Sauce.

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

Mix the minced shallots, salt, pepper, water, and vinegar in a bowl.
Boil the mixture for a few minutes.

Serve

Serve the sauce hot or cold, as preferred.

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.

Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,898 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Shallot + vinegartop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,374 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 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

Minced shallots: Adds a mild, onion-like aroma and savoury flavour to the sauce.
Sharp vinegar: Supplies the sharp acidity that gives the sauce its tang.