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Sauce

Thick Veloute Sauce

A thickened sauce made from butter, flour, and chicken stock, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Thick Veloute Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the roux

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

  2. Add the flour and stir continuously to form a roux, being careful not to scorch it.

Finish the sauce

  1. Gradually whisk in the hot chicken stock until smooth.

  2. Cook until the sauce thickens, then season with salt and pepper to taste.

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 + chickentop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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
Fat that coats the flour to form the roux and carries rich, savory flavor.
Flour
Starch thickener that swells in the hot liquid to give the sauce body.
Chicken stock
Liquid that hydrates the flour starch and forms the sauce's base.

The step that matters

Gradually whisk in the hot chicken stock until smooth.. The flour's starch granules swell and thicken as liquid is added. Adding the stock gradually while whisking keeps the starch evenly dispersed, which prevents lumps and gives a smooth 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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