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Sauce

Russian Sauce

A creamy sauce made with butter, flour, white stock, and seasonings, served with beef.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Fannie Merritt Farmer · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Russian Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt butter.

  2. Add flour.

  3. Pour in white stock gradually.

  4. Add salt, pepper, mustard, chives, and horseradish.

  5. Cook two minutes.

  6. Strain the sauce.

  7. Add cream and lemon juice.

Serve

  1. Reheat before serving.

  2. Serve with beef tenderloins or hamburg steaks.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

630Calories
14 gProtein
18 gFat
101 gCarbs

Counts 8 of 9 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Mustard1 tsp (5g) yellow3
Chives1 tbsp (3g)1
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Horseradishnot 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 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. Mustard + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Chive + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together587 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Chive + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together113 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Forms the fat base that the flour cooks into, giving the sauce richness.
Flour
Thickens the butter and stock into a smooth, body-giving sauce.
White stock
Supplies the liquid that the flour thickens into the sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and a softer, rounder texture to the finished sauce.
Horseradish
Contributes sharp, pungent heat that gives the sauce its characteristic bite.

The step that matters

Pour in white stock gradually. Adding liquid slowly while stirring lets the flour disperse evenly, so the sauce thickens smoothly without lumps.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, pepper, chive, mustard, horseradish, cream):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Cherryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, pepper, chive, mustard, horseradish, cream. 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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