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Sauce

An English Poivrade Sauce

A peppered sauce made from diced ham, butter, flour, broth, pepper, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

An English Poivrade Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Lightly fry or gently stew the diced ham in butter until evenly colored.

  2. Stir in the flour.

  3. Gradually pour in the boiling broth or brown gravy.

  4. Boil softly for half an hour.

Strain and finish

  1. Strain the sauce.

  2. Skim the sauce.

  3. Reheat with pepper and vinegar.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  3. Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

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

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

Lean ham
Adds savory meat flavor and, browned in butter, deepens the sauce's color.
Butter
Carries the ham's flavor and helps it brown evenly.
Flour
Starch thickens the broth as it heats, giving the sauce body.
Broth or brown gravy
Makes up most of the sauce, supplying liquid and savory flavor.

The step that matters

Gradually pour in the boiling broth. Adding the hot liquid slowly while stirring lets the flour disperse evenly, so the sauce thickens smoothly without lumps.

“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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