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Reform Sauce

A sauce made with onion, ham, tomato, herbs, brown sauce, tarragon vinegar, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and tarragon work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 391 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Reform Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Fry the onion, ham, and tomato in a little butter for five minutes.

  2. Add the herbs, brown sauce, and tarragon vinegar.

Simmer and strain

  1. Cook slowly for fifteen minutes.

  2. Strain the sauce.

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. Tomato + tarragontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together391 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Onion + tarragontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,568 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Onion
Softens and sweetens as it fries, building the sauce's aromatic base.
Lean ham
Adds savory, meaty flavor that deepens during the slow cooking.
Brown sauce
Forms the main liquid, providing body and rich savory depth.
Tomato
Adds gentle acidity and fruity sweetness, breaking down into the sauce.
Tarragon vinegar
Contributes sharp acidity and aromatic tang to balance the richness.
Herbs
Infuse the sauce with fresh aroma during cooking.

The step that matters

Cook slowly for fifteen minutes. A gentle heat prevents the sauce from catching or scorching on the base of the pan, while letting the flavors of the onion, ham, tomato, and herbs blend smoothly together.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, sauce, tomato, tarragon, vinegar, butter):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, sauce, tomato, tarragon, vinegar, butter. 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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