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Italian Sauce

A savory sauce made with mushrooms, onion, eschalots, ham, stock, wine, lemon, and finished with a beurre manié.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Italian Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce base

  1. Combine mushrooms, onion, eschalots, and ham in a clean quart stewpan.

  2. Fry for 5 minutes until golden.

  3. Add stock and bouquet garni.

  4. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 45 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in Chablis (or sauternes or madeira) and lemon juice, season with pepper and salt.

  2. In another stewpan, melt butter and mix in flour.

  3. Gradually strain the sauce into the second stewpan while stirring.

  4. The sauce is ready.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Mushroom + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Mushrooms
Provide the main earthy flavour and body of the sauce as they soften and release their juices.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and giving the sauce a smooth mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the sauce when cooked with butter to form a roux.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding savoury depth.
Chablis
Adds acidity and wine flavour that brightens the rich mushroom base.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that balances richness and sharpens the flavours.

The step that matters

Gradually strain the sauce into the roux while stirring. Adding the liquid slowly while whisking keeps the flour and butter dispersed, which prevents lumps and gives a smooth, evenly thickened sauce.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, onion, ham, pepper, butter, flour):

  1. Avocadofits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Plumfits about as well
  4. Limefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, onion, ham, pepper, butter, flour. 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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