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Sauce

Thick Cream Sauce

A thickened sauce made from hot cream, butter, flour or corn starch, and seasonings, used with meat or fish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Thick Cream Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Scald the cream in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Melt the butter in the saucepan.

  3. When the butter is bubbling, add the flour or corn starch and stir until well mixed.

  4. Add one-third of the cream.

  5. Stir as it boils and thickens.

  6. Continue adding more cream.

  7. Boil until the sauce is very thick and smooth.

  8. Add the seasoning.

Serve

  1. Mix it hot with the meat or fish.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + celerytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,905 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. White pepper + celerytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together853 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

Cream
Forms the liquid base that thickens into a rich, smooth sauce.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel in the sauce.
Flour
Starch that swells when heated with liquid, thickening the sauce.
Corn starch
Alternative starch that thickens the sauce strongly when heated with liquid.

The step that matters

Adding the cream gradually to the roux. Adding liquid in portions while stirring keeps the starch evenly dispersed, preventing lumps. Boiling until thick lets the starch grains swell fully, so the sauce sets properly.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, butter, flour, celery, pepper):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, butter, flour, celery, pepper. 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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