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Sauce

Lemon Sauce, for Fowls, White

A white lemon sauce for poultry made with stock, lemon rind, spices, parsley, cream, and optional butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley 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 ↓

Lemon Sauce, for Fowls, White

Ingredients

Directions

Infuse the flavours

  1. Combine white stock, lemon rind, peppercorns, mace, nutmeg, salt, and parsley in a saucepan.

  2. Simmer gently for 20 minutes.

  3. Strain the sauce and add cream or milk.

Thicken and finish

  1. Thicken with flour mixed smoothly with a little cold milk, then boil gently for a few minutes.

  2. For a richer sauce, thicken with a little butter rolled in flour.

  3. Before serving, add the strained lemon juice, letting the sauce cool slightly first, and stir well to prevent curdling.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  5. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

White stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavours of the sauce.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and a smooth, silky body to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce so it coats the back of a spoon.
Butter
Adds richness and a glossy finish to the thickened sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds bright acidity that balances the cream and stock.

The step that matters

Adding the lemon juice. Acid can curdle hot dairy, so letting the sauce cool slightly before stirring in the juice helps keep the cream smooth.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, nutmeg, parsley, cream, flour, butter):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, nutmeg, parsley, cream, flour, butter. 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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