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Madeira Sauce

A sauce made with brown stock, flour, butter, cayenne pepper, salt, pepper, and Madeira wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Madeira Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Stir in the flour and cook for a minute to form a roux.

  3. Gradually add the brown stock, stirring constantly until thickened.

  4. Add the cayenne, salt, and pepper, then stir in the Madeira wine.

  5. Cook until the sauce is thick and well combined.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Flour + madeira winetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together423 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Pepper + madeira winetop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together582 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Flour and butter 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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Melts with the flour to form the roux that starts the sauce's base.
Flour
Thickens the sauce by forming a roux with the melted butter.
Brown stock
Forms the liquid body of the sauce, which thickens as it is added.
Madeira wine
Adds its distinctive sweet, aromatic flavour to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the brown stock to the roux. Adding liquid gradually while stirring constantly keeps the flour smooth and prevents lumps, so the sauce thickens evenly.

“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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