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Sauce Allemande

A velouté-based sauce thickened with an extra egg yolk, nutmeg, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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

Prepare the sauce

  1. Prepare Velouté sauce, boiling it down before and after thickening until strong and well flavored.

  2. In a bowl, beat the yolks of eggs, adding one more than for the Velouté.

  3. Mix in a little grated nutmeg and the lump of butter.

Finish the sauce

  1. When the sauce is boiling, gradually stir it into the egg mixture.

  2. Return the mixture to a double boiler and stir rapidly for a few minutes without letting it boil. Avoid curdling 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

Velouté sauce
Provides the thickened base that gives the sauce its body and main flavor.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they heat and add richness and a smooth texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a glossy, smooth mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Returning the mixture to the double boiler. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat, but above about 160°F (71°C) they scramble and curdle. Stirring constantly over indirect heat without boiling keeps the sauce smooth and creamy.

Swap the nutmeg

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, egg, 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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