Skip to main content
Main

A Fine Sauce, or Puree of Vegetable Marrow

A sauce made by stewing vegetable marrow and onion in veal broth, then pureeing and enriching with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
A Fine Sauce, or Puree of Vegetable Marrow

Why it works: Onion and veal are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,841 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

A Fine Sauce, or Puree of Vegetable Marrow

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pare the vegetable marrow and remove all seeds.

  2. Slice the vegetable marrow.

  3. Slice the mild onion.

Make the sauce

  1. Add the sliced marrow and onion to the broth or gravy.

  2. Stew gently for nearly an hour.

  3. Add salt and cayenne or white pepper near the end of cooking.

  4. Press the mixture through a fine sieve.

  5. Heat the sauce again.

  6. Stir in the cream when it boils.

Serve

  1. Serve with boiled chicken, stewed or boiled veal, lamb cutlets, or other delicate 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.

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. Onion + vealtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,841 recipes

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

  2. Onion + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,827 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Veal + white peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. White pepper + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,439 recipes
  5. Veal + creamtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,202 recipes

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

Onion and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,827 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

Vegetable marrow
Its flesh cooks down soft and bulks out the sauce, giving it body once sieved.
Mild onion
Adds savory depth and aroma to the broth as it stews.
Strong veal broth or pale gravy
Forms the liquid base and supplies the main meaty flavor of the sauce.
Rich cream
Adds fat and a smooth, rounded texture when stirred in at the end.

The step that matters

Stirring in the cream when it boils. Cream can curdle or separate if it is overheated or boiled hard for long. Adding it at the final heating and keeping the sauce just at the boil preserves a smooth, unified texture.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, veal, 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.

You might also like

Veal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesBeef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes