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Sauce

Bordeaux Sauce

A pickled sauce made from green tomatoes, cabbage, red pepper, onions, spices, brown sugar, mustard seed, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Bordeaux Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Sprinkle the sliced green tomatoes with salt and soak overnight.

  2. After soaking, measure the tomatoes.

Cook and jar

  1. In a large pot, combine the tomatoes, cabbage, red pepper, onions, allspice, celery seed, brown sugar, mustard seed, and vinegar. Mix well and boil for 30 minutes.

  2. Seal the mixture in 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. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

  5. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Green tomatoes
Provide the bulk and tart flavour of the sauce, softening during the long boil.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth as they soften into the sauce.
Cabbage
Adds bulk and body, breaking down during cooking to thicken the sauce.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar and tomatoes.
Vinegar
Supplies acidity that gives the sauce its tang and helps preserve it.

The step that matters

Boil for 30 minutes. Boiling long enough softens the vegetables and reduces the liquid so the sauce thickens. Sealing before it is fully cooked can leave it thin and less stable in storage.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, pepper, onion, allspice, celery, sugar, mustard):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Broccolifits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, pepper, onion, allspice, celery, sugar, mustard. 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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