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Supreme Sauce

A thick sauce made from white sauce, chicken broth, parsley, peppercorns, cream, salt, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Supreme Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Combine thick white sauce and strong chicken broth in a pot.

  2. Add parsley and white peppercorns, then boil down to ½ pint.

  3. Stir until blended, then boil rapidly until thick, being careful not to burn.

  4. Add double cream and salt, if needed, and boil until thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain the sauce and stir in lemon juice before serving.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Chicken + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Chicken + parsleytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,314 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Sauce + chickentop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Thick white sauce
Provides the thick, creamy base that gives the sauce its body.
Strong chicken broth
Supplies the main savory flavour and liquid for the sauce.
Double cream
Adds richness and a silky texture, helping the sauce coat a spoon.
Lemon juice
Adds a bright acidity that lifts and balances the rich flavours.

The step that matters

Boil rapidly without burning. Once the sauce thickens, it can scorch on the bottom of the pot, which gives a bitter, burnt taste. Stirring steadily while it reduces helps prevent sticking.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, chicken, parsley, 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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