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White Sauce for Braising White Meats

A white sauce made from beef suet, bacon, herbs, onion, carrots, salt, peppercorns, lemon, water, and flour for braising white meats.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and carrot are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 21,601 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

White Sauce for Braising White Meats

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine the beef suet, bacon, herbs, onion, carrots, salt, peppercorns, and lemon juice and pulp.

  2. Stir over low heat until the fat is dissolved, ensuring the mixture does not brown.

  3. Add a moderate amount of water and strain through a fine sieve.

  4. Gradually mix in flour until smooth for braising meats like calf's head, veal, rabbit, or chicken.

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

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

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Beef + carrottop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,606 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,029 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef suet
Melts into the liquid to add richness and a silky body to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the strained liquid into a smooth, lightly bodied sauce.
Lemon juice and pulp
Adds acidity that brightens the rich fat and balances the flavour.

The step that matters

Stir over low heat until the fat is dissolved. High heat can brown the fat and solids, giving a darker colour and a roasted flavour that the white sauce is meant to avoid. Gentle heat melts the fat evenly without scorching.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, onion, carrot, flour):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, carrot, flour. 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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