Skip to main content
Main

German Sauce

A creamy mushroom sauce flavored with sherry, white stock, and sweet herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
German Sauce

Why it works: Shallot and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,982 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

German Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in the flour until smooth.

  3. Add the sherry, white stock, cream, shallot, mushrooms, bay leaf, and sweet herbs.

  4. Simmer slowly for 15 minutes.

  5. If the sauce is too thick, add a little more stock.

Finish and serve

  1. Pass through a fine sieve and serve.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  2. Sherry + mushroomtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,176 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Flour + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the butter and liquids into a smooth, body-rich sauce.
Butter
Carries the flour and adds richness and fat to the sauce.
White stock
Forms the main liquid that the sauce is built and thinned with.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the savoury base.
Cream
Adds fat and softness, giving the sauce a smoother mouthfeel.
Button mushrooms
Contribute savoury, earthy flavour as they simmer into the sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour. Flour must be cooked smoothly into the melted butter so it forms a roux; if lumps form or it is not stirred evenly, the sauce will be grainy and uneven in thickness.

Swap the shallot

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

  1. Shallotthe original
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Spinachfits less well
  4. Chivefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sherry, cream, butter, mushroom. 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.

More german sauce recipes

for Puddings 3 See all 35 →

You might also like

Mushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes