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Sauce Mousscilne

A light, creamy sauce made with butter, flour, water, salt, egg yolk, fresh butter, and beaten cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream 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 ↓

Sauce Mousscilne

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add a pinch of flour and mix thoroughly.

  3. Wet the mixture with a little warm water and season with coarse sea salt.

  4. Bring to a boil, then add the egg yolk and beat the sauce with a little fresh butter.

Strain and finish

  1. Pass the sauce through the finest gauze.

  2. At the moment of serving, mix in 2 tablespoons of beaten cream.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

Butter and flour 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

Egg yolk
Thickens the sauce and gives it a rich, smooth body as it sets gently with heat.
Butter
Adds fat for a silky mouthfeel and rich flavour that carries the sauce.
Beaten cream
Lightens the sauce and adds a soft, airy texture when folded in at the end.
Flour
Helps bind the melted butter and gives the base enough body to hold the sauce together.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk after bringing the sauce to a boil. Egg yolk thickens through gentle heat and can scramble if the sauce is too hot. Beating it in steadily while the sauce is hot but not violently boiling keeps it smooth and emulsified.

“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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