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Sauce Allemande

Sauce Allemande is a velouté-based sauce thickened with egg yolks and butter, flavored with nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Sauce Allemande

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat the egg yolks with the Velouté sauce in a bowl.

  2. Add a pinch of nutmeg and the butter, then mix well.

  3. Simmer the mixture gently for 10 minutes, stirring constantly.

  4. If desired, add 1 tablespoon of stock to thin the sauce.

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. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Nutmeg + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Sauce + nutmegtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,244 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they cook and add richness.
Velouté sauce
Provides the base body and flavour that the yolks enrich.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, glossy texture and rich flavour.

The step that matters

Simmering with the yolks. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat but can scramble if overheated. Keep the heat low and stir constantly so the sauce thickens smoothly without curdling.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Parsleyfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sauce, butter. 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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