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Sauce

Spanish Sauce

A sauce made from ham, veal, fowl trimmings, butter, flour, stock, wine, lemon, and meat glace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Spanish Sauce

Why it works: Butter and white wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,083 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Spanish Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the ham, veal, and giblets into small pieces.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, mix the butter and flour until well combined.

  2. Stir the mixture over medium heat until it turns a good brown color.

  3. Moisten with stock, white wine, and lemon juice.

  4. Simmer on low heat for several hours.

  5. Strain through a fine sieve to remove grease.

  6. Thicken the sauce with a little meat glace.

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.

  1. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Ham + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

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

  5. Ham + vealtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,264 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the sauce and, with the flour, forms the browned roux that gives body and flavor.
Fine flour
Forms a roux with the butter that thickens the sauce as it cooks.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce and carries its flavor.
White wine
Adds acidity and depth to the sauce as it simmers.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, meaty flavor.
Meat glace
Concentrates meaty flavor and adds body to finish the sauce.

The step that matters

Browning the roux. Stirring the butter and flour over medium heat until a good brown color develops builds nutty, toasted flavor. Stopping too early leaves a pale, raw-tasting sauce, while scorching gives a bitter taste.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, veal, butter, flour, white wine, meat):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Applefits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Grapefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, veal, butter, flour, white wine, meat. 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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