Name: White Sauces for Boiled Meats or Poultry — Egg Sauce
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon good butter; 2 teaspoons flour; 1 cup fresh sweet milk; 1 cup sweet cream; 4-5 hard-boiled egg yolks, chopped; 2 egg whites, chopped; salt to taste

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 Sauces for Boiled Meats or Poultry — Egg Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

In a bowl, rub together the butter and flour until smooth.
In a saucepan, heat the milk over medium heat until it boils.
Add the butter mixture to the boiling milk and shake the pan.
Once the butter melts, stir in the cream and heat just until scalded.
Remove from heat and stir in the chopped egg yolks and whites.
Add salt to taste and serve over boiled meats or poultry.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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: Enriches the sauce with fat and richness, and carries flavour.
Flour: Thickens the butter and milk mixture so the sauce becomes smooth and body-rich.
Milk: Forms the liquid base of the sauce that the flour thickens.
Cream: Adds fat for a richer, silkier texture and mouthfeel.
Hard-boiled egg yolks: Give the sauce its characteristic rich flavour and body as they are stirred in.

The step that matters

Adding the butter mixture to the boiling milk. Flour thickens best when it is evenly dispersed. Adding the butter-flour paste to the hot liquid while shaking the pan helps prevent lumps, which form when flour clumps together in hot liquid.

“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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White Sauces for Boiled Meats or Poultry — Egg Sauce