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Sauce

Cream Sauce

A simple butter, flour, milk sauce seasoned with salt, pepper, and parsley.

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

  1. Melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Add the flour and stir until smooth and frothy.

Add the milk and finish

  1. Gradually add the milk while stirring continuously.

  2. Return the pan to the heat and bring the sauce to a boil.

  3. Add the salt and pepper, then simmer for 3 minutes.

  4. Stir in the chopped parsley and serve.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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
Carries fat for richness and flavour, and cooks with the flour to form the base.
Flour
Starch thickens the liquid into a smooth, body-rich sauce as it heats.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the starch thickens into a creamy sauce.

The step that matters

Gradually add the milk while stirring continuously. Adding liquid slowly while stirring keeps the flour dispersed, so the starch hydrates evenly and the sauce stays smooth instead of forming lumps.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

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