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Sauce

Cream-sauce for Venison

A creamy sauce made with cream, egg yolks, onion, butter, flour, and salt, used for venison.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cream-sauce for Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Heat the cream in a saucepan over low heat.

  2. In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and chopped onion.

  3. Melt the butter in a pan.

Make the sauce

  1. Stir in the flour and salt to make a roux.

  2. Gradually add the heated cream to the roux, stirring constantly until thickened.

  3. Combine the cream mixture with the egg yolk mixture.

  4. Heat gently without boiling.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Cream
Provides liquid and richness, forming the body of the sauce.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help thicken the sauce as they set with gentle heat.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor and forms the base of the roux.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the sauce when cooked in butter to form a roux.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and flavor to the sauce.

The step that matters

Heat gently without boiling. Egg yolks can scramble or curdle if overheated, so the sauce should be warmed slowly and kept below a boil once the yolks are added.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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