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Sauce Soubise

A sauce made from onions, cream, stock, béchamel, salt, peppercorns, simmered and strained.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Sauce Soubise

Why it works: Cream and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,787 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Sauce Soubise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Blanch the onions.

  2. Slice the onions.

Make the sauce

  1. Boil the onions in the stock until nearly done.

  2. Add the béchamel sauce.

  3. Cook until tender.

  4. Sieve the sauce.

  5. Reheat the sauce with the cream.

  6. Season to taste 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. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

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

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

  4. Onion + saucetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Veal + saucetop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,072 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (soapy, waxy).

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

Onions
Soften into the sauce and give it a mild, sweet flavour as they cook.
White stock
Provides the liquid base and savoury flavour that cooks the onions.
Béchamel sauce
Adds body and thickness, so the sauce coats the back of a spoon.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Boil the onions in the stock until nearly done. Onions must be cooked until very soft so they break down fully when sieved. If they are underdone, the sauce stays grainy and lumpy; if overcooked, the flavour turns dull and the colour darkens.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Onionthe original
  2. Horseradishfits about as well
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Shallotfits about as well

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