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Sauce

Water Sauce

A simple sauce made from flour, butter, water, sugar, egg, and optional milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Water Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Rub together the flour and melted butter.

  2. Stir the mixture into the boiling water and boil for 15 minutes.

  3. Add a pinch of salt and the sugar, then boil for 5 more minutes.

  4. Pour the boiling liquid over the beaten egg, stirring quickly and continuously.

  5. Cook for a few moments longer, then remove from heat and flavor to taste.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the boiling water.
Egg
Enriches the sauce and thickens it slightly when heated gently while stirred.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the sauce.
White sugar
Adds sweetness to the sauce.

The step that matters

Pouring the boiling liquid over the egg. Adding boiling liquid to egg too fast or without constant stirring can scramble the egg. Stirring quickly and continuously spreads the heat so the egg is gently warmed and the sauce stays 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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