Name: Wine Sauce
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon flour; A little grated nutmeg; 1 egg; 1 cup powdered sugar; 2 tablespoons wine; 1 cup butter; 1 tablespoon brandy; 2 eggs

Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Wine Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the flour, powdered sugar, and a pinch of salt together.
Pour boiling water over the mixture and let it boil for ten minutes.
Cream the butter in a separate bowl and beat the egg lightly.
Add the wine to the hot sauce and pour it over the egg, butter, and nutmeg.
Beat vigorously until well mixed.
In another bowl, cream the butter and powdered sugar, then add the beaten eggs, wine, and brandy.
Heat the mixture gently over hot water.

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.

Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,427 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,645 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, egg, sugar, wine, butter, brandy):

Cinnamonfits better
Nutmegthe original
Tarragonfits less well
Clovefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, sugar, wine, butter, brandy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.