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Soubise Sauce

A sauce of onions blended into Velouté with cream, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Fannie Merritt Farmer · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,787 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Soubise Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

  1. Cover onions with boiling water, cook five minutes, drain.

  2. Again cover with boiling water, and cook until soft; drain.

  3. Rub through a sieve.

Finish the sauce

  1. Add to sauce with cream.

  2. Season with salt and pepper.

  3. Serve with mutton, pork chops, or hard-boiled eggs.

By Fannie Merritt Farmer. 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. Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,827 recipes

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

  4. Onion + saucetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Onion and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,827 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

Onions
Break down into a soft pulp that gives the sauce its body and sweetness.
Velouté sauce
Forms the base of the sauce, providing body and a smooth, coating texture.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and a softer, smoother mouthfeel to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Cooking the onions until soft. Onions must be simmered until fully tender before sieving, because undercooked pieces stay fibrous and won't purée into a smooth sauce. Boiling first also mellows their sharp, raw flavour.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

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

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Horseradishbetter flavor fit
  3. Spinachbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, cream, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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