Skip to main content
Main

Spanish Sauce

A sauce made with butter, flour, water or stock, carrots, tomatoes, and roasted veal.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Spanish Sauce

Why it works: Carrot and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,606 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Spanish Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, brown the flour in the butter over medium heat.

  2. Moisten the mixture with water or stock.

  3. Add the chopped carrots, tomatoes, and the roasted knuckle of veal.

  4. Cook for two hours, stirring occasionally.

  5. Strain the sauce first through a colander, then through muslin.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Carrot + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + carrottop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,029 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Carrot + vealtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,015 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + vealtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together709 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the roux and carries flavour while the flour cooks.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the butter into a roux.
Carrots
Add sweetness and body to the sauce as they cook down.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and colour, and break down to thicken the sauce.
Knuckle of veal
Gives the sauce meaty depth and savoury flavour as it simmers.

The step that matters

Browning the flour in the butter. The flour must cook until lightly browned to remove raw starch taste and build a nutty flavour. Stirring over medium heat prevents scorching, which would make the sauce bitter.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, carrot, veal):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, carrot, veal. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipes