Name: Soubise Sauce
Ingredients: 1 pint Bechamel Sauce; 4 boiled onions; 2 tablespoons cream

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

1 pint Bechamel Sauce
4 boiled onions
2 tablespoons cream

Directions

Prepare 1 pint of Bechamel sauce.
Puree 4 boiled onions until smooth.
Mix the onion puree into the Bechamel sauce.
Heat the mixture gently.
Stir in 2 tablespoons of cream 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.

Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,787 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Onion + creamtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together10,827 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
Sauce + oniontop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together10,474 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Bechamel sauce: Forms the smooth, creamy base that carries the flavour of the sauce.
Boiled onions: Pureed into the base to add body, sweetness and a mild onion flavour.
Cream: Adds richness and a silky texture at the end of cooking.