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Champagne Sauce

A sauce made with butter, browned flour, soup stock, champagne, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Champagne Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Whisk in the browned flour until well combined.

  3. Add the soup stock and stir constantly until the mixture comes to a boil.

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

  5. Remove from heat and stir in the champagne.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + champagnetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Champagne + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together280 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour through the sauce.
Browned flour
Thickens the sauce and adds a toasted, nutty flavour.
Soup stock
Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens into a sauce.
Champagne
Adds acidity and a bright, fruity aroma at the end.

The step that matters

Adding the stock. Stir constantly while the stock heats. Flour thickens liquid only when it is evenly dispersed, so stopping to stir can leave lumps or uneven thickness.

“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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