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Supreme Sauce.

A rich sauce made with butter, flour, chicken stock, onion, clove, bay leaf, fresh butter, cream, egg yolk, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Supreme Sauce.

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the flour and cook over medium heat without browning.

  3. Stir in the chicken stock, onion, clove, and bay leaf.

  4. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 15 minutes, skimming as needed.

Finish and serve

  1. Incorporate the fresh butter, cream, and yolk of egg, cooking for 3 minutes without boiling.

  2. Stir in the lemon juice, strain through a fine cloth, warm, and serve.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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 sauce with fat, adding richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth, velvety sauce body.
Chicken stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the sauce's savory flavor.
Cream
Adds fat and softness, rounding out the sauce's texture.
Egg yolk
Thickens the finished sauce gently and adds richness.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances its richness.

The step that matters

Incorporate the yolk without boiling. Egg yolk can curdle or scramble if the sauce boils after it is added. Keeping the sauce below boiling lets the yolk thicken it smoothly.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, chicken, onion, cream, egg, lemon):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, chicken, onion, cream, egg, lemon. 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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