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Sauce

Soubise Sauce

A sauce made from béchamel, Spanish onion puree, cream, salt, pepper, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Soubise Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

  1. Cook the onions in milk until tender.

  2. Drain the onions well and rub them through a fine sieve.

Make the sauce

  1. Make the sauce using the milk in which the onions were cooked.

  2. Mix the onion puree with the sauce, then add cream and season with salt, pepper, and sugar.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Sauce + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Onion + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,827 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

Onion and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,827 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

Bechamel sauce
Forms the thick, smooth base that carries the onion flavour.
Spanish onion puree
Adds sweetness and onion flavour, thickening the sauce with its pulp.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother, silkier mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Draining and sieving the onions. Excess cooking liquid or coarse pieces left in the puree will thin the sauce and make it grainy, so drain well and rub the onions fully through the sieve.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, pepper, sugar, cream):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, pepper, sugar, cream. 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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