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Cream Sauce

A thickened milk sauce flavored with butter, flour, salt, nutmeg, cayenne, onion juice, and parsley, formed into croquettes and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Cream Sauce

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cream Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Heat 1 cup of milk in a double boiler.

  2. In a pan, melt 1 tablespoon of butter, then stir in 2 tablespoons of flour, 1 teaspoon of salt, ¼ teaspoon of grated nutmeg, and a few grains of cayenne until smooth.

  3. Gradually add the hot milk while beating continuously until thick.

  4. Stir in 1 teaspoon of onion juice and 1 tablespoon of chopped parsley.

  5. Let the mixture cool, then shape it into cone-shaped croquettes.

Coat and fry

  1. Beat 1 egg with 2 tablespoons of milk.

  2. Roll each croquette in finely grated bread crumbs, dip in the egg mixture, then roll in bread crumbs again.

  3. Fry in boiling fat for 1 minute.

  4. Place on a platter and garnish with parsley.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the milk with the melted butter into a smooth, thick sauce that holds the croquettes' shape.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and carries the flour, giving a smooth, rich base.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens as it is beaten with the roux.
Egg
Binds the crumb coating so it adheres to the croquettes during frying.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before shaping. A thick sauce that is still warm stays soft and sticky, so it will not hold a cone shape or survive coating. Cooling lets the starch set so the croquettes keep their form in the frying fat.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, flour, nutmeg, pepper, parsley, egg):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, flour, nutmeg, pepper, parsley, egg. 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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