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Sherry Sauce

A sauce made from egg yolks, sugar, sherry wine, and beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Sherry Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat the yolks of three eggs slightly with a fork.

  2. Add sugar and sherry wine, then cook over hot water until thickened.

  3. Gradually pour the mixture onto the beaten egg whites, which should be stiff, while continuing to beat.

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. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Sugar + sherrytop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,141 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Egg + sherrytop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Sugar + winetop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together9,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Sherry + winetop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together0 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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 set gently over heat, giving it a rich, smooth body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sherry's flavour.
Sherry wine
Adds its distinctive aroma and flavour to the sauce.
Egg whites
Whipped stiff, they trap air and give the sauce a light, airy texture.

The step that matters

Gradually pour the mixture onto the egg whites. Pouring the hot mixture slowly while beating prevents the whites from cooking into lumps and deflating. Adding it all at once can make the sauce uneven and lose its airy texture.

“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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