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Sauce

Cream Sauce for a Hare

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

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

  1. Heat the cream in a saucepan just before it froths.

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

  3. Add the hot cream to the egg yolks gradually, stirring constantly.

Make the sauce

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

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

  3. Gradually add the cream and egg mixture to the saucepan, 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 add richness as they set gently with the warm cream.
Cream
Provides the liquid base and rich, smooth texture of the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor, and carries the onion while it softens.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the butter mixture into a roux that helps the sauce hold together.

The step that matters

Add the hot cream to the egg yolks gradually, stirring constantly. Adding hot cream too fast or without constant stirring can scramble the egg yolks. Gradual tempering raises their temperature slowly so they thicken the sauce smoothly.

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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