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Sauce

Piquante Sauce

A savory sauce made with butter, flour, white gravy, catsup, soy sauce, anchovy sauce, Reading sauce, capers, caper vinegar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and anchovy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 2,057 recipes mention both. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Piquante Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter in a small saucepan.

  2. Stir in the flour continuously.

  3. Add the white gravy and mix well.

  4. Incorporate the catsup, soy sauce, anchovy sauce, Reading sauce, capers, caper vinegar, and salt.

  5. Bring the mixture to a boil.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Flour + caperstop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,024 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Anchovy + caperstop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together473 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  4. Sauce + caperstop 11% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together678 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour share little aroma chemistry, yet 124,287 recipes mention both: they likely 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
Forms the fat base that the flour cooks into, giving the sauce its body and richness.
Flour
Thickens the sauce when cooked with the butter and liquid, giving it structure.
White gravy
Provides the main liquid that the thickened base is loosened and seasoned with.
Capers
Add sharp, briny flavour that gives the sauce its piquant character.
Caper vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and sharpens its piquant flavour.

The step that matters

Stir in the flour continuously. Flour added to melted butter can clump or scorch if not stirred constantly. Keeping it moving coats each particle in fat and cooks it smoothly, so the sauce thickens evenly without lumps.

“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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