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Sauce

S 'mice Aifjre

A quick egg-based sour sauce made with vinegar, butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

S 'mice Aifjre

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, mix the eggs, cold water, and vinegar.

  2. Heat the mixture over low heat until it nearly boils.

  3. Whisk the butter with the flour, then add it to the mixture.

  4. Stir until the butter is dissolved and the sauce reaches a creamy consistency.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Walnut + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Walnut + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Eggs
Set and thicken the sauce as they cook, giving it body and a creamy texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the sauce turn smooth and glossy.
Flour
Thickens the sauce by absorbing liquid when heated, giving it body.
Vinegar
Provides the sour flavour that defines the sauce and balances the richness.

The step that matters

Heat the mixture over low heat until it nearly boils. Egg proteins set when heated, so high heat can scramble the eggs and leave lumps. Gentle heat lets the mixture thicken evenly into a smooth sauce.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Sesamefits about as well
  3. Walnutthe original
  4. Chestnutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, vinegar, butter, 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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