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Sauce

English Sauce for Salad, Cold Meat, or Cold Fish

A sauce made from hard‑boiled egg yolks, salt, sugar, cayenne, water, cream or olive oil, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

English Sauce for Salad, Cold Meat, or Cold Fish

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the egg yolks for at least 15 minutes and let them cool completely.

  2. Mash the yolks in a bowl with the back of a wooden spoon until smooth.

  3. Add the salt, sugar, cayenne, and cold water; mix well.

  4. Gradually stir in the sweet cream until combined.

  5. If using olive oil, add it slowly while stirring until the sauce resembles custard.

  6. Add the chili vinegar and common or French vinegar to taste.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Pepper and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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

Egg yolks
Hard-boiled yolks mash into a smooth base that thickens the sauce and gives it body.
Sweet cream
Adds fat and richness, softening the sauce into a smooth, creamy texture.
Olive oil
Emulsifies into the yolk base as a substitute for cream, thickening the sauce like custard.
Chili vinegar
Adds acidity and sharp heat that cut through the richness of the yolks and cream.

The step that matters

Adding the sweet cream or olive oil. Fat must be added gradually while stirring so it emulsifies into the yolks. Adding it too fast can break the mixture, leaving it oily and thin instead of smooth and custard-like.

“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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