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Sauce

Soubise Sauce

A creamy onion sauce made with milk, white sauce, cream, pepper, salt, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar 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. Peel and slice the onions.

  2. Boil the onions in the milk until tender.

  3. Press out the milk and rub the onions through a fine sieve.

Finish the sauce

  1. Combine the onions with the white sauce in a saucepan and reduce to half the quantity.

  2. Stir in the cream, pepper, salt, and caster sugar.

  3. The sauce is now ready for use.

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 + sugartop 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. Onion + peppertop 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. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Onions
Form the bulk and body of the sauce, and sweeten it as they cook down.
Milk
Cooks the onions gently until tender, adding mild richness to the purée.
White sauce
Provides a thick base that gives the soubise its smooth, coating body.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Reducing the onion and white sauce mixture. Reducing concentrates the flavour and thickens the sauce. Stopping too early leaves it thin and watery, while reducing too far makes it stiff and salty-tasting once seasoned.

Swap the onion

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

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

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