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Sauce

White Sauce for Vegetables

A simple white sauce made with butter, flour, milk, stock, and seasonings, served over boiled vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

White Sauce for Vegetables

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan until bubbling.

  2. Mix the flour with the salt and white pepper, then add to the melted butter, stirring until blended.

  3. Gradually add the hot milk and stock, stirring until smooth.

  4. Remove from heat as soon as it reaches boiling point.

Serve

  1. Cook one-third cup of any vegetable in boiling water and serve with this sauce.

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. Butter + flourtop 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. Butter + white peppertop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. White pepper + milktop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,304 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

Butter
Melts with the flour to form a roux that gives the sauce its body and richness.
Flour
Thickens the melted butter and liquids into a smooth, cohesive sauce as its starch gelatinizes.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base of the sauce and adds a mild, rich flavor.
Stock
Adds savory depth to the sauce and contributes to its liquid volume.

The step that matters

Remove from heat as soon as it reaches boiling point.. Milk-based sauces can scorch or form a skin and lumps if overheated. Stopping at the first boil keeps the sauce smooth and prevents the starch from breaking down with prolonged heating.

“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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