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Soubise Sauce

A creamy onion sauce made with béchamel, cream, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Soubise Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a pan, stew the minced onions in butter until softened.

  2. Add the thickened béchamel sauce, salt, and powdered sugar.

  3. Cook gently for 30 minutes.

  4. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve.

  5. Stir in the cream and butter to complete the sauce.

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

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

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sauce + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. 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

Onions
Break down into a soft, sweet base that gives the sauce its body and flavor.
Béchamel sauce
Adds body and thickness, helping the sauce coat food smoothly.
Butter
Softens the onions and adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and smoothness, softening the sauce's texture.

The step that matters

Rub the mixture through a fine sieve. Pressing the cooked onions through a fine sieve breaks down their fibers and removes lumps, which gives the sauce a smooth, even texture. Skipping or rushing this step leaves the sauce coarse.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, sugar, cream, butter):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Horseradishfits about as well
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, sugar, cream, 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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