Name: Turtle Sauce
Ingredients: 1 pint rich beef gravy, thickened; ⅓ cup Madeira wine; juice and peel of ½ lemon; 6-8 basil leaves; 1 eschalot, sliced; a few grains of cayenne or curry powder; 2 teaspoons essence of anchovy; 12 turtle force-meat balls

Why it works: Lemon and basil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,823 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Turtle Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

In a saucepan, combine the thickened beef gravy, Madeira wine, lemon juice and peel, basil leaves, sliced eschalot, cayenne or curry powder, and essence of anchovy.
Simmer the mixture for 5 minutes.
Strain the sauce and add the turtle force-meat balls.

Serve

Serve with boiled or hashed calf's head, stewed veal, or any rich dish.

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.

Lemon + basiltop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,823 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Beef + meattop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,533 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Anchovy + meattop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together335 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Beef + anchovytop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together451 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Lemon + anchovytop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,080 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef gravy: Forms the body of the sauce and carries the other flavours.
Madeira wine: Adds depth and a sweet, fortified aroma to the sauce.
Lemon: Adds acidity that brightens the rich gravy.
Eschalot: Contributes a mild savoury aroma as it softens in the simmering liquid.
Essence of anchovy: Adds concentrated savoury, salty depth to the sauce.
Turtle force-meat balls: Provide the main meaty substance that is served in the sauce.

Swap the basil

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, madeira wine, lemon, anchovy, meat):

Thymefits better
Parsleyfits better
Marjoramfits better
Basilthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, madeira wine, lemon, anchovy, 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.