Name: Chicken Sauce
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon butter; 1 tablespoon sifted flour; ½ cup broth; 2 teaspoons mushroom; 2 teaspoons ketchup; 2 tablespoons cream; 2 teaspoons lemon juice; 2 egg yolks

Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Chicken Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

In a bowl, rub together the butter and flour until well combined.
In a saucepan, combine the broth, mushroom, ketchup, cream, and lemon juice; bring to a boil while stirring.
Remove from heat and gradually stir in the beaten egg yolks, ensuring the mixture does not boil to prevent curdling.
Once thickened, serve immediately or keep warm in hot water until ready to use.

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.

Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Ketchup + creamtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together279 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Flour + ketchuptop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,435 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Swap the lemon

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

Lemonthe original
Raisinfits about as well
Coconutfits about as well
Vanillafits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, mushroom, ketchup, cream, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.