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Sauce

Veloute, Without Meat

A creamy vegetable sauce made with onion, celery, carrot, herbs, milk, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Veloute, Without Meat

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the onion, celery, carrot, and herbs; cover tightly and cook gently for 5 minutes.

  3. Stir in the flour and fry gently for 2-3 minutes.

  4. Gradually stir in the milk and water.

  5. Bring to a boil, then simmer for about 45 minutes.

  6. Add salt to taste.

  7. Strain through a fine strainer or wring through a tammy.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Fat that enriches the base and carries flavour from the vegetables.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth, velvety sauce when cooked with the butter.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma as it softens gently in the butter.
Milk
Adds body and creaminess to the finished velouté.

The step that matters

Stir in the flour and fry gently. Cooking the flour briefly in the butter removes its raw taste and helps it thicken evenly. Adding the liquid before this roux is cooked can leave a pasty, floury flavour and lumps.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, carrot, butter, flour, milk):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, carrot, butter, flour, milk. 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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