Name: White Sauce
Ingredients: 2 tablespoons melted butter; ⅓ cup ketchup; ⅓ cup soy sauce; 2 tablespoons flavored vinegar (Elder or Tarragon); ¼ teaspoon pepper; ¼ teaspoon fine spice; 2 tablespoons sweet herbs; 2 tablespoons capers; 2 tablespoons eschalots

Why it works: Ketchup and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

White Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

Melt the butter in a saucepan.
Add ketchup, soy sauce, and flavored vinegar.
Stir in pepper, fine spice, sweet herbs, capers, and eschalots.
Cook over low heat until heated through.

Serve

Serve with roasted meats.

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.

Ketchup + saucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,099 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Sauce + caperstop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together678 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Pepper + caperstop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,088 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,338 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Butter: Melted butter gives the sauce its rich, fatty base and carries the flavors.
Ketchup: Adds tomato sweetness and acidity, giving the sauce body and a savory tang.
Soy sauce: Contributes salty, savory depth and umami to the sauce.
Flavored vinegar: Adds sharp acidity and aromatic herb notes that brighten the sauce.
Capers: Add briny, sharp bursts of acidity that cut through the butter.

Swap the capers

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, ketchup, sauce, vinegar, pepper):

Tarragonfits better
Parsleyfits about as well
Capersthe original
Celeryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, ketchup, sauce, vinegar, pepper. 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.