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Veloute Sauce

Velouté sauce is a light, creamy sauce made by thickening stock with a roux of flour and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Veloute Sauce

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Veloute Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the roux

  1. In a pan, mix the flour and butter well.

  2. Fry gently on the side of the stove until it turns a very pale color.

Finish the sauce

  1. Gradually mix in the stock and stir until it boils.

  2. Add the cream, salt, and lemon juice, then keep boiling for about five minutes.

  3. Skim off any foam, strain, and 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Veal + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Fine flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce when cooked with butter and liquid.
Butter
Forms the roux with the flour and adds richness and smooth mouthfeel.
Flavored stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce and carries its main flavor.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky texture to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Frying the roux gently to a very pale color. Flour starch thickens best when cooked just enough to remove its raw taste. Cooking too hot or too long darkens the roux, changes the flavor, and weakens thickening power.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Vanillafits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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