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Sauce

Fowl Sauce

A savory sauce made from veal scraps, fowl parts, mace, peppercorns, celery, herbs, lemon, and water, thickened with butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,467 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Fowl Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. In a saucepan, combine scraps of veal, necks and feet of fowls, mace, peppercorns, celery, sweet herbs, lemon juice, and water.

  2. Boil for 1 hour, then strain the mixture.

Finish the sauce

  1. Thicken the strained liquid with butter rolled in flour.

  2. Stir in mushrooms, beaten egg yolks, cream, and grated nutmeg.

  3. Heat gently until ready to 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.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  3. Celery + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,006 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Veal + mushroomtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,446 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, 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

Butter and flour
Form a roux-style thickener that gives the sauce body and a smooth, rich texture.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce when gently heated, adding richness and a silky texture.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, softening the flavor and giving the sauce a smooth mouthfeel.
Necks and feet of fowls
Release gelatin and savory flavor into the water during long simmering, giving the stock body.

The step that matters

Heat gently after adding the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat, but if the sauce boils after they are added, the proteins scramble, leaving the sauce grainy and curdled instead of smooth.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, celery, lemon, butter, flour, mushroom, egg. 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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