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Sauce

Bechambl Sauce

A creamy white sauce made with butter, flour, stock, cream, and egg yolk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Bechambl Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the roux

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in the flour, salt, and pepper.

Add the liquid and finish

  1. Gradually add the chicken stock and cream, mixing well.

  2. Add the beaten egg yolk and stir to combine.

  3. Place the saucepan over hot water and let it stand for 5 minutes.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + chickentop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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 fat and rich flavor, and cooks with the flour to form the base.
Flour
Its starch swells in the hot liquid and thickens the sauce.
Chicken stock
Supplies the main liquid that makes the sauce pourable.
Cream
Adds richness and body, giving the sauce a smoother mouthfeel.
Egg yolk
Thickens gently with heat and adds richness and a silkier texture.

The step that matters

Add the beaten egg yolk and stir to combine. Egg yolk thickens the sauce as it warms, but if it gets too hot it can scramble and turn grainy. Stirring it in evenly while the sauce is warm, then keeping the gentle heat of the hot water bath, helps it blend smoothly and thicken evenly.

“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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