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Sauce

Sauce Italienne. — Italian Sauce.

A savoury sauce made from sweet oil, mushrooms, parsley, shallots, white wine and stock, thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Sauce Italienne. — Italian Sauce.

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Heat sweet oil in a stewpan.

  2. Add chopped mushrooms, parsley, shallots, bay leaf, cloves, and garlic.

  3. Sauté the mixture a few times over the heat.

  4. Sprinkle in flour and stir to combine.

Simmer and serve

  1. Pour in white wine and stock, then add cullis, salt, and whole pepper.

  2. Let the sauce boil for 30 minutes, then skim off any foam.

  3. Remove the herbs and serve.

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 + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Parsley + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  5. Shallot + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells in the hot liquid.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the sauce's savoury base.
Stock
Provides the main liquid and savoury flavour of the sauce.
Mushrooms
Release moisture and savoury flavour as they cook in the fat.
Shallots
Contribute mild sweetness and aroma when softened in the oil.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour. Stirring the flour fully into the hot oil and vegetables coats each particle, which prevents lumps and lets it cook out its raw taste before the liquid is added. Cooking the flour briefly also helps it thicken the sauce evenly as it simmers.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, parsley, shallot, garlic, flour, white wine, pepper):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, parsley, shallot, garlic, flour, white wine, 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.

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