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Sauce

Maitre D'hotel Sauce

A rich French sauce made with butter, flour, cream, veal stock, lemon or chili vinegar, pepper, salt, parsley, and optional egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 14,036 recipes mention both. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a small saucepan.

  2. Gradually stir in the flour and continue stirring for 5-10 minutes until well blended.

  3. Slowly add the boiling cream and veal stock, a few spoonfuls at a time, stirring well and allowing to simmer for 1-2 minutes between additions.

  4. Once smooth, add the strained lemon juice or chili vinegar, pepper, salt, and chopped parsley.

Enrich or simplify

  1. For a richer sauce, mix in the egg yolks and reduce the flour to half.

  2. For a plainer version, thicken the milk with 1 ounce of butter and 1 heaped teaspoon of flour, then flavor with lemon juice, pepper, and salt.

  3. Add the parsley and lemon juice off the heat.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,036 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together34,118 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,039 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Butter + creamtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together41,494 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together122,858 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour share little aroma chemistry, yet 122,858 recipes mention both: they likely 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
Carries the flavor and forms the base of the roux, giving the sauce richness.
Flour
Cooked with the butter, it thickens the sauce into a smooth, body-rich texture.
Boiling cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Veal stock
Contributes savory depth and body to the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the buttery sauce and balances its richness.
Egg yolks
Thicken and enrich the sauce, adding fat and a custard-like texture.

The step that matters

Adding the boiling cream and stock slowly. Adding hot liquid a few spoonfuls at a time while stirring lets the flour starch disperse evenly, which prevents lumps and keeps the sauce smooth.

“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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