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Champagne Sauce

A sauce made with butter, flour, gravy, champagne, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Champagne Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Mix in the flour and stir constantly until the mixture is amber brown.

  3. Slowly pour in the boiling gravy while stirring continuously.

Season and finish

  1. Once it boils, season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  2. Strain the sauce and stir in the champagne 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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + champagnetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Champagne + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together280 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor, and its milk solids help the roux brown.
Flour
Starch thickens the sauce once cooked in the butter to form a roux.
Gravy
Forms the liquid base that the roux thickens into a sauce.
Champagne
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the rich sauce.

The step that matters

Slowly pour in the boiling gravy while stirring continuously. Flour starch must be dispersed evenly into the liquid. Adding the gravy gradually while stirring lets each starch granule separate and hydrate, which prevents lumps and gives a smooth, evenly thickened sauce.

“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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