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Cream or Poulette Sauce

A sauce made with flour, water, lemon, salt, beef suet, and oyster plant, simmered until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30,404 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cream or Poulette Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scrape the oyster plant and soak it in acidulated water until fully scraped.

  2. Tie the oyster plant into bundles of 8 or more.

Make the sauce

  1. In a pot, dilute the flour with water and add lemon juice, salt, and beef suet.

  2. Cook the mixture for 30 minutes.

Cook and serve

  1. Add the oyster plant and simmer slowly until tender.

  2. Drain the oyster plant, place it on a dish, and pour over cream or poulette 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. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Beef + oystertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together798 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  3. Lemon + beeftop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,278 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Flour + oystertop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,582 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (grass, green).

  5. Flour + beeftop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and beef barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,677 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

Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth, lightly bodied sauce as it cooks.
Beef suet
Adds richness and fat, giving the sauce a rounder, more savoury mouthfeel.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and helps keep the oyster plant pale.
Oyster plant (salsify)
Provides the main vegetable, which turns tender through slow simmering.

The step that matters

Simmer the oyster plant slowly until tender. Vigorous boiling breaks up the vegetable and cloudies the sauce, while gentle simmering lets starch and fibres soften evenly. Checking for tenderness prevents both undercooked centres and mushy pieces.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, beef, oyster):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Avocadofits about as well
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, beef, oyster. 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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