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Bordeaux Sauce

A fermented cabbage and tomato sauce seasoned with spices, vinegar, mustard, sugar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Turmeric and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 629 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Bordeaux Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine all ingredients in a large pot.

  2. Bring to a boil and cook for 20 minutes.

  3. Pack the sauce into jars while hot.

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. Turmeric + allspicetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Turmeric + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  4. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  5. Turmeric + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Provides the bulk of the sauce and body as it cooks down.
Tomatoes
Add moisture, acidity and body to the sauce.
Onions
Add savoury depth and sweetness as they soften during cooking.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavour and helps preserve the sauce.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the vinegar and tomatoes with sweetness.
White mustard seed
Contributes pungency and a sharp, sour-tinged bite to the sauce.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, tomato, vinegar, turmeric, celery, allspice, pepper):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, tomato, vinegar, turmeric, celery, allspice, 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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