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Sauce

Vegetarian Cookery

A sauce made from butter, flour and cold spring water, stirred with extra butter until smooth and served for use.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Payne, A. G. (Arthur Gay), 1840-1894 · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Vegetarian Cookery

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce base

  1. Put four ounces of fresh butter into a middle-sized stew-pan, with grated nutmeg and minionette pepper.

  2. Add four ounces of sifted flour and knead the whole well together.

  3. Moisten with a pint of cold spring water.

  4. Stir the sauce on the fire till it boils.

Cook and finish

  1. Keep it gently boiling for twenty minutes, not thicker than the consistency of common white sauce.

  2. Mix in one pound and a half of sweet fresh butter, stirring the sauce quickly the whole time.

  3. Should it appear to turn oily, add now and then a spoonful of cold spring water.

  4. Finish with the juice of half a lemon and salt to palate.

  5. Pass the sauce through a tammy into a large bain-marie for use.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

724Calories
21 gProtein
22 gFat
110 gCarbs

Counts 6 of 7 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Payne, A. G. (Arthur Gay), 1840-1894. 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. See the original page.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Melts into the sauce to give it richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the liquid, giving it body.
Cold spring water
Forms the liquid base of the sauce and helps stop it turning oily when added.
Lemon juice (in the method)
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter flavour.

The step that matters

Stirring in the butter. Adding the large amount of butter while stirring constantly keeps the emulsion smooth. If the sauce looks oily, a spoonful of cold water helps bring it back together.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Parsleyfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, pepper. 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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