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Sauce

English White Sauce

A sauce made from veal gravy, lemon rind, arrow-root or flour and butter, salt, and boiling cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Veal and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,580 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

English White Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the veal gravy softly with the lemon rind until it flavors the gravy.

  2. Stir in the arrow-root or the flour and butter mixture to thicken.

  3. Add salt if needed.

  4. Mix in the boiling cream.

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. Veal + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Lemon + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  4. Veal + creamtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  5. Veal + flourtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,886 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal gravy
Forms the savoury liquid base that gives the sauce its body and depth of flavour.
Arrow-root
Starch that swells when heated, thickening the sauce to a smooth, coating consistency.
Lemon rind
Its oils scent the gravy with a bright citrus aroma as it simmers.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, giving the sauce a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Stir in the thickener while the gravy is hot. Starch granules only swell and thicken properly when heated close to boiling. Stirring disperses them evenly through the liquid so the sauce thickens smoothly instead of clumping.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Vanillafits about as well
  4. Coconutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, flour, cream. 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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