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Sauce

Bordeaux Sauce

A fermented green tomato sauce with onions, cabbage, peppers, vinegar, spices, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery 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

  1. Chop the green tomatoes, onions, cabbage, and red peppers together.

  2. In a large pot, combine the chopped vegetables with vinegar, salt, mustard seed, brown sugar, celery seed, cloves, allspice, and turmeric.

  3. Cook slowly over low heat until soft, about 1 hour or more.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

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 of the sauce and its tart, fresh-vegetable body as they soften.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and depth that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that gives the sauce its tang and helps preserve it.
White mustard seed
Contributes a sharp, pungent flavour that mellows during long cooking.

The step that matters

Cook slowly over low heat until soft. Low, gentle heat lets the vegetables break down evenly and the vinegar and sugar blend without scorching on the bottom of the pot. Stirring during cooking helps prevent sticking, and the sauce thickens as moisture evaporates.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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