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Sauce

Whtte Wine Sauce

A sauce made from fish fumet, veloute, butter, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Fish and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,488 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Whtte Wine Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine ½ cup fish fumet with 1 pint thickened veloute and reduce by half.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in 4 ounces of butter until melted.

Alternative methods

  1. For the second method, reduce ⅓ cup fish fumet, then mix in 4 egg yolks and gradually add 1 pound of butter.

  2. For the third method, mix 5 egg yolks with 2 teaspoons cold fish stock in a small saucepan. Place the saucepan in a bain‑marie and gradually add 1 pound of butter and 6 tablespoons of fish fumet.

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. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Fish + eggtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,782 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Thickened veloute
Provides the body and base structure of the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, glossy texture as it melts into the sauce.
Egg yolks
Emulsify the butter and help thicken the sauce when gently heated.
Fish fumet
Adds concentrated fish flavor and liquid that reduces into the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the butter to the egg yolk mixture. Butter must be added gradually so the yolks can emulsify it; adding it too fast or with too much heat can split the sauce into separated oil and curdled egg.

“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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