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Sauce

Roman Sauce

A sauce made from water, milk, flour, eggs, pepper, butter, vinegar, served with boiled tongue, beef, venison, or fish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Roman Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, heat the water and milk until scalded.

  2. Stir in the flour and beaten eggs until well combined.

  3. Season with pepper, then add the butter and vinegar.

  4. Boil the mixture for a few minutes until thickened.

Finish and serve

  1. Slice the hard-boiled eggs and lay them over the sauce.

  2. Serve with boiled tongue, beef, venison, or fish.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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
Beaten eggs thicken the sauce as they set with heat, giving it body.
Flour
Starch thickens the liquid and helps give the sauce a smooth, stable texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Milk
Adds liquid and milk solids for a creamy body and mild sweetness.
Vinegar
Adds a sharp acidity that brightens the richness of the sauce.

The step that matters

Boil until thickened. Egg proteins set when heated, but overheating or boiling too hard can curdle the eggs and make the sauce grainy. Heat gently while stirring, and boil only briefly until the sauce coats a spoon.

“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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