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Sauce Piquant or Sharp Sauce

A savory sauce made with shallot, carrot, mushrooms, butter, flour, brown stock, thyme, bay leaf, cayenne pepper, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,476 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Sauce Piquant or Sharp Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the shallot and mushrooms, scrape the carrot, and chop them finely.

Make the sauce

  1. In a stewpan, combine the shallot, carrot, and mushrooms with the butter.

  2. Place the stewpan on the fire and fry the mixture until browned.

  3. Stir in the flour.

  4. Stir in the brown stock, mixing well.

  5. Add the thyme and bay leaf.

  6. Stir until the sauce boils.

  7. Remove the stewpan from the heat and let it simmer for 20 minutes.

Finish

  1. Season with salt, a few grains of cayenne pepper, and vinegar.

  2. Strain the sauce.

  3. It is ready for use.

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. Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  4. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + thymetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Carries the flavour of the vegetables and helps them brown in the pan.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells in the hot liquid.
Brown stock
Forms the main liquid and gives the sauce its body and savoury depth.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and gives the sauce its piquant edge.

The step that matters

Stir in the brown stock, mixing well.. Flour lumps form if it is not dispersed evenly before liquid is added. Mixing thoroughly lets the starch hydrate evenly, so the sauce thickens smoothly.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shallot, mushroom, butter, flour, thyme, pepper, vinegar):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, mushroom, butter, flour, thyme, pepper, vinegar. 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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