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Sauce

Cream Sauce for Salmon

A sauce made from cream, egg yolks, and vinegar, boiled and thickened.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 24% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 42,166 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Cream Sauce for Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Bring the cream to a boil.

  2. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks with the vinegar.

Thicken and cool

  1. Add the egg yolk mixture to the boiling cream.

  2. Bring to a boil again, then remove from heat.

  3. Stir the sauce until it cools.

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 + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Cream + vinegartop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,064 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Egg + vinegartop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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
Adds richness and body, and its fat gives the sauce a smooth mouthfeel.
Egg yolks
Their proteins set when heated, thickening the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that cuts the richness of the cream.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk mixture to boiling cream. Egg yolk proteins set when heated, so they can curdle or scramble if they get too hot too fast. Stirring as they join the cream keeps the sauce smooth.

“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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