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Sauce

Maigre.

A lean white sauce made with butter, carrot, onion, mushrooms, flour, milk, salt, cayenne, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and onion 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 ↓

Maigre.

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a thick saucepan, melt the butter over low heat.

  2. Add the sliced carrot, onions, and mushroom buttons; stew slowly for 30 minutes until the butter is nearly dried up.

  3. Stir in the flour, then gradually pour in the milk while shaking the saucepan to keep the sauce smooth.

  4. Gently boil the sauce for 30 minutes; add salt and cayenne to taste.

  5. Strain the sauce and reduce it if not thick enough, or mix in the boiling sauce with the egg yolks.

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. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Carrot + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,796 recipes

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

  5. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the milk and butter into a smooth, body-rich sauce as its starch swells when heated.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens as the flour starch gelatinises.
Egg yolks
Add richness and thickening power when stirred into the hot sauce.
Butter
Provides fat for flavour and helps build the base of the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the milk to the flour. Pouring the milk in gradually while shaking the pan keeps the flour dispersed, so the sauce stays smooth rather than lumpy as the starch hydrates.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, mushroom, flour, milk, 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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