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Sauce

Sharp Sauce

A savory sauce made with oil, tomato, onion, mushrooms, garlic, flour, vinegar, herbs, pepper, salt, nutmeg, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Garlic and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Sharp Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine the salad oil, tomato, onion, mushrooms, and garlic.

  2. Cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes.

  3. Add the flour and stir until well combined.

  4. Gradually add the water, stirring until the sauce boils.

  5. Stir in the vinegar and herbs, then simmer for a few minutes.

  6. Strain the sauce 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. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Garlic + tomatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Mushroom + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,700 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Mushroom + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,719 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Salad oil
Carries the vegetable flavours and fat into the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the water and oil mixture into a smooth sauce.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and body as it softens in the oil.
Tomato
Adds acidity and body to the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds sharpness that gives the sauce its tang.
Mushrooms
Add savoury, earthy depth as they cook down.

The step that matters

Gradually add the water, stirring until the sauce boils. Adding liquid slowly while stirring keeps the flour dispersed so it thickens smoothly instead of forming lumps. Stirring also helps the starch swell evenly as the sauce heats to a boil.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, mushroom, garlic, tomato, onion, flour, pepper):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Oreganofits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, mushroom, garlic, tomato, onion, flour, 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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