Skip to main content
Sauce

Poulette Sauce

A white sauce made with stock, thickened with egg yolks and cream, and finished with butter, lemon juice and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Mary Ronald · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 24 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Poulette Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the white sauce

  1. Take a pint of white sauce made with chicken or veal stock instead of milk.

  2. Beat four yolks with a cupful of cream.

  3. Remove the sauce from the fire, and add it slowly to the eggs and cream, stirring all the time.

  4. Put it again on the fire a moment to thicken; do not let it boil, or it will curdle.

  5. Add one tablespoonful of butter slowly, a small piece at a time, the juice of half a lemon, a tablespoonful of chopped parsley, and a dash of nutmeg. Serve at once.

Make the poulette sauce

  1. Put in a saucepan one tablespoonful of butter and a slice of onion; fry for a few moments, but not brown.

  2. Remove the onion, and add two tablespoonfuls of flour; cook but do not brown the flour.

  3. Dilute with two cupfuls of stock, and boil, stirring constantly until the sauce is very thick.

  4. Season with one half teaspoonful of salt, one quarter teaspoonful of pepper, a dash each of cayenne and nutmeg; remove from the fire, and add the yolks of four eggs beaten with one half cupful of cream or milk.

  5. Place again on the fire, and let thicken until quite stiff and elastic; do not let it boil after the eggs are added, or it will curdle; stir constantly.

  6. When it is beginning to cool, pour it over the articles it is to coat, or roll the articles in it as the recipe directs.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

755Calories
22 gProtein
25 gFat
110 gCarbs

Counts 10 of 12 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 10 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Cayenne1 tsp (1.8g)6
Parsley1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)1
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0
Saucenot 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 Mary Ronald. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Cooked in butter, it thickens the stock into a smooth sauce body.
Egg yolks
They thicken the sauce further and add richness when stirred in gently.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, mellow texture to the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat for a glossy finish and rich flavour when stirred in at the end.
Stock
Forms the savoury liquid base that gives the sauce its flavour.

The step that matters

Do not let the sauce boil after the eggs are added. Egg proteins set when heated too far, so boiling makes the sauce curdle and lose its smooth texture. Thicken gently and keep stirring.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, pepper, cream, sauce, parsley, nutmeg):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, pepper, cream, sauce, parsley, nutmeg. 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

Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)186 recipesCaper SauceCaper Sauce180 recipesBrown SauceBrown Sauce141 recipesDutch SauceDutch Sauce74 recipes