Name: Devil Sauce
Ingredients: young onions; French vinegar; cayenne pepper; strong gravy; wine; anchovy butter (filleted anchovies, butter, cayenne)

Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Devil Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Finely chop the young onions.
Moisten the onions with a little French vinegar and boil for 5-6 minutes.
Add cayenne pepper, strong gravy, wine, and anchovy butter to the mixture.
Serve the sauce with grilled meat like chops or chicken drumsticks.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Vinegar + winetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,493 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Anchovy + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,697 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,645 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,226 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, pepper, wine, anchovy, butter):

Capsicumfits better
Tomatofits about as well
Shallotfits about as well
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, pepper, wine, anchovy, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.