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Sauce

German Sauce for Asparagus or Seakale

A creamy German sauce made with baked flour, cream, egg yolk, butter, white pepper, salt, and white vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

German Sauce for Asparagus or Seakale

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix the baked flour with the cream in a saucepan.

  2. Stir over medium heat until it begins to thicken.

  3. Add the beaten egg yolk and butter, stirring well.

  4. Season with white pepper, salt, and white vinegar.

  5. Continue to cook for a few more minutes until fully 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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. White pepper + vinegartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Baked flour
Thickens the cream as it heats, giving the sauce body.
Cream
Forms the sauce base and adds richness and smoothness.
Egg yolk
Enriches the sauce and adds richness as it gently sets with heat.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, glossy texture and mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk. Egg yolk can scramble if the sauce is too hot when it goes in. Stirring well while adding it and keeping the heat moderate lets the yolk blend in and thicken the sauce smoothly instead of curdling.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, cream, egg, butter, vinegar. 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.

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