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Geneveve Sauce, or Sauce Genevoise

A savory sauce made with ham, carrot, spices, veal gravy, sherry, and thickened with butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Geneveve Sauce, or Sauce Genevoise

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a stewpan, combine diced ham, carrot, cloves, mace, lemon-thyme, parsley, and butter.

  2. Simmer for 45 to 60 minutes.

  3. Stir in 1 teaspoon of flour and continue simmering for 5 minutes.

  4. Gradually pour in 1 pint of boiling veal gravy and let simmer for nearly an hour.

  5. Strain the sauce into a clean saucepan and bring to a boil.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in 1½ cups of sherry or Madeira, 2 tablespoons of lemon juice, cayenne, and salt if needed.

  2. Mix 1 tablespoon of flour with 2 ounces of butter until smooth, then add to the sauce.

  3. Boil the sauce after adding the thickening, then serve over fish, primarily salmon or trout.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the sauce, giving it body as it cooks and after the butter paste is added.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and with flour forms a smooth paste that thickens the sauce.
Veal gravy
Provides the main savoury liquid base and meaty depth of the sauce.
Sherry or madeira
Adds sweetness, aroma and a wine-based depth of flavour to the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce and balances the wine.

The step that matters

Adding the flour and butter thickening. Flour mixed with butter must be stirred until smooth and then boiled after adding, so the starch fully swells and thickens the sauce without lumps or a raw floury taste.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, carrot, clove, lemon, thyme, parsley, butter):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, carrot, clove, lemon, thyme, parsley, butter. 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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