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White Sharp Sauce

A sharp white sauce made with vinegar, peppercorns, sauce tournee, stock, egg yolks, butter, salt, cayenne, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

White Sharp Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the reduction

  1. Boil the white wine vinegar with tarragon or tarragon vinegar and peppercorns until reduced to ¼ cup.

Make the sauce

  1. Add the reduction to the sauce tournee and stock, then boil.

  2. Strain.

  3. Return the sauce to the heat.

  4. Thicken with beaten egg yolks, butter, salt, and cayenne.

  5. Just before serving, stir in the cream.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. White wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they heat, giving it a smooth, rich body.
White wine vinegar
Provides the acidic base that is reduced to concentrate the peppery flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and a glossy mouthfeel to the thickened sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and softens the sharpness of the reduced vinegar.

The step that matters

Thicken with beaten egg yolks. Egg yolks set when heated, so the sauce must be kept below boiling while they are added. Too much heat can scramble the yolks and leave the sauce grainy or curdled.

“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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