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Sauce

Espagnole

A brown sauce made with butter, shallots, ham, carrot, herbs, spices, and veal stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme 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 ↓

Espagnole

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter in a thick saucepan over moderate heat.

  2. Add the shallots, ham, carrot, bay leaf, parsley, thyme, cloves, mace, and peppercorns.

  3. Stir the mixture for 20 minutes.

  4. Gradually add the veal stock or gravy and simmer gently for 30 to 40 minutes.

  5. Strain the sauce and skim off the fat before serving.

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. Parsley + thymetop 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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  4. Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Thyme + clovetop 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

Butter
Fat that softens the aromatics and carries their flavour into the sauce.
Shallots
Aromatic base that adds sweetness and savoury depth as they soften.
Lean undressed ham
Adds salty, savoury meat flavour to the stock base.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and body as it cooks down in the sauce.
Veal stock or gravy
Main liquid that gives the sauce its body and rich meaty flavour.

The step that matters

Stirring the vegetables and ham over heat. The mixture should soften and colour gently without scorching, since burnt solids add bitter flavour that carries into the finished sauce. Keeping the heat moderate and stirring regularly prevents sticking.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, shallot, ham, carrot, thyme, clove, mace):

  1. Winter savoryfits about as well
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Allspicefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, shallot, ham, carrot, thyme, clove, mace. 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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