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Sauce

Universal Sauce

A sauce made from broth or butter, white wine, lemon peel, herbs, and vinegar, simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and white wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,083 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Universal Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a pot, combine the broth or drawn butter with white wine and grated lemon peel.

  2. Add the laurel leaf or peach leaves and vinegar.

  3. Simmer the mixture over low heat for 5-6 hours.

Serve and store

  1. Use the sauce to pour over meat, poultry, or fish.

  2. Store in a cool place for several days.

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 + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Lemon + laureltop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,239 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. White wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. White wine + laureltop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Broth or drawn butter
Provides the liquid base and richness that carries the sauce's flavour.
White wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth as it reduces during the long simmer.
Lemon
Its grated peel adds bright citrus aroma and flavour.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the richness of the broth or butter.

The step that matters

Simmering over low heat for 5-6 hours. Long, gentle simmering slowly concentrates flavour and lets aromatics infuse. Too much heat can scorch or break the sauce, so keep the liquid at a bare simmer and check it over the full time.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, white wine, laurel, vinegar):

  1. Plumfits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Grapefits about as well
  4. Apricotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, white wine, laurel, vinegar. 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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