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Dessert

Almond Sauce

A sauce made from blanched almonds, milk, flour, and egg yolk, simmered until frothy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Almond Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almonds

  1. Blanch and pound the almonds in a mortar with the water.

  2. Put the almonds in a saucepan and pour the milk over them.

Make the sauce

  1. Mix the flour with a little milk and the egg yolk, then add to the almond mixture.

  2. Stir on the heat until it froths, then serve.

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. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Almond + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Sweet almonds
Provide the main nutty flavour and body once pounded and steeped in the milk.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that carries the almond flavour and gives the sauce its creamy texture.
Flour
Starch that thickens the sauce as it heats and stops it from being thin.
Egg yolk
Proteins thicken and enrich the sauce as they gently set with heat.

The step that matters

Stir on the heat until it froths. Egg yolk and flour thicken the sauce only with gentle heat. If it gets too hot or boils hard, the yolk can scramble or curdle, leaving a grainy, thin sauce.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Milletfits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits less well
  4. Hazelnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, egg. 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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