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Sauce

Sour Egg Sauce for Green Beans and Potatoes

A creamy sauce made from egg yolks, flour, milk, butter, nutmeg, lemon juice, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Sour Egg Sauce for Green Beans and Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks with the flour until smooth.

  2. Gradually add the milk, stirring to combine.

  3. Add the butter, nutmeg, lemon juice, and salt.

  4. Pour the mixture into a saucepan over medium heat.

  5. Stir continuously until the sauce thickens and is cooked through.

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. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they cook and add richness and a smooth, custard-like body.
Flour
Stabilizes the sauce and helps prevent the egg yolks from curdling.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the yolks and flour thicken into a smooth sauce.
Butter
Adds fat for a silky mouthfeel and rich flavor.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the richness.

The step that matters

Stir continuously until the sauce thickens. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if they overheat or sit still over heat. Constant stirring over medium heat distributes warmth evenly, so the sauce thickens smoothly and stays cooked through.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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