Name: Nantua Sauce
Ingredients: 1 pint Béchamel sauce; ½ pint heavy cream; 2 tablespoons heavy cream; 3 ounces crayfish butter; 1 tablespoon small shelled crayfish tails

Why it works: Cream and butter 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 ↓

Nantua Sauce

Ingredients

1 pint Béchamel sauce
½ pint heavy cream
2 tablespoons heavy cream
3 ounces crayfish butter
1 tablespoon small shelled crayfish tails

Directions

Boil 1 pint of béchamel sauce.
Add ½ pint of heavy cream and reduce by a third.
Rub the mixture through a fine sieve.
Finish by adding 2 tablespoons of heavy cream, 3 ounces of crayfish butter, and 1 tablespoon of small shelled crayfish tails.

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.

Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,787 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Sauce + crayfishtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together195 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Crayfish + buttertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together343 recipes

Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).
Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,338 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Béchamel sauce: Forms the thick white base that the cream is reduced into and sieved.
Heavy cream: Adds richness and body, and thickens as it reduces.
Crayfish butter: Adds rich shellfish flavour and colour to the finished sauce.
Small shelled crayfish tails: Add texture and a fresh crayfish flavour to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Reducing the cream and béchamel by a third. Reducing concentrates flavour and thickens the sauce, but over-reducing can make it too thick or cause the cream to scorch on the bottom of the pan. Stirring and watching the volume 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.