Skip to main content
Main

Saitce AUemande

A thick white sauce made with stock, egg yolks, milk, butter, flour, mushrooms, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Mushroom and thyme are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,557 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Saitce AUemande

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Combine thyme, bay leaves, and ½ pint of water in a stewpan.

  2. Heat over high heat, stirring occasionally until a clear glaze forms on the bottom.

  3. Add 10 quarts of stock or 9 quarts of water and 3 ounces of coarse sea salt, and bring to a boil.

  4. Reduce heat and simmer for 2.5 hours, skimming occasionally.

  5. Strain the mixture through a fine cloth into a basin.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt 1 pound of butter over low heat.

  2. Stir in 1.5 pounds of flour and cook for 10 minutes without browning.

  3. Remove from heat and stir until half cold.

  4. Gradually add the strained stock while stirring quickly.

  5. Return to high heat, stirring continuously, and boil for 30 minutes.

  6. Add 2 tablespoons of chopped mushrooms and 1 quart of boiling milk.

  7. Boil for an additional 10 minutes.

Strain and cool

  1. Strain through a tammie into a basin.

  2. Stir occasionally until cold.

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. Mushroom + thymetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Milk + mushroomtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,231 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells in the hot liquid, giving body.
Butter
Carries the flour into a roux and adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
Stock
Forms the savoury liquid base that the sauce is built on.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the flavour of the sauce.

The step that matters

Cooking the roux without browning. Cooking the flour in butter for 10 minutes drives off its raw taste and lets it thicken fully. Browning would change the colour and flavour, so keep the heat gentle. Adding the stock gradually while stirring quickly prevents lumps.

Swap the thyme

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Thymethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, mushroom, butter, flour. 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

Mushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes