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Sauce

Cream Sauce for a Hare

A creamy sauce made with cream, egg yolks, butter, onion, flour, and salt, suitable for hare.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter 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 ↓

Cream Sauce for a Hare

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the cream and yolks

  1. Heat the cream in a saucepan until just before boiling.

  2. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks.

  3. Gradually add the hot cream to the egg yolks, stirring constantly.

Make the onion roux

  1. In another pan, melt the butter and sauté the onion until soft.

  2. Stir in the flour and salt, cooking for 1–2 minutes.

Finish the sauce

  1. Combine the cream mixture with the onion mixture, stirring until thickened.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce and give it a rich, smooth body as they set gently with heat.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, giving the sauce a silky, smooth texture.
Butter
Carries the onion flavour and adds fat for a smooth, rich finish.
All-purpose flour
Cooked with butter to form a roux that thickens the sauce.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma as it softens in the butter.

The step that matters

Adding the hot cream to the egg yolks. If hot cream is poured in too fast or not stirred constantly, the yolks can scramble. Adding it gradually and stirring tempers the yolks so the sauce thickens smoothly instead of curdling.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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