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Sauce

Sauce for Cold Meats

A creamy sauce made with eggs, acid jelly, mustard, vinegar, and butter, served with cold meats.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and cucumber match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,281 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Sauce for Cold Meats

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Beat the eggs in a bowl, leaving out one white.

  2. Cut the acid jelly into small pieces and mix it with the eggs.

  3. In a separate bowl, mix the flour, mustard, and a little vinegar until smooth.

  4. Add the butter and ½ cup vinegar to the mixture.

  5. Heat the mixture in a saucepan.

  6. Stir constantly until the sauce thickens.

Serve

  1. If desired, add chopped green cucumber pickle before serving.

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. Mustard + cucumbertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Vinegar + cucumbertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Eggs
Provide structure and thickening as they set with heat, giving the sauce body.
Acid jelly
Adds acidity and body, flavouring the sauce as it melts into the mixture.
Flour
Thickens the sauce by absorbing liquid and swelling when heated.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavour and aroma that balances the richness of the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavour and balances the richness of the eggs and butter.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, rich texture and mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Stir constantly until the sauce thickens. Egg proteins can scramble if the mixture overheats or sits still on the heat. Constant stirring spreads heat evenly, letting the eggs and flour thicken the sauce smoothly.

Swap the cucumber

The recipe marks cucumber as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, flour, mustard, vinegar, butter):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, mustard, vinegar, butter. 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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