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Sauce

Mad Madeira Sauce

A sauce made with broth, butter, flour, pickled lemon, Madeira wine, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg 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 ↓

Mad Madeira Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine broth, butter, and flour to thicken.

  2. Add chopped pickled lemon and mix well.

  3. Stir in more butter and Madeira wine.

Finish

  1. Sprinkle with nutmeg before serving.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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

Broth
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which the flour thickens.
Flour
Thickens the broth into a smooth, body-rich sauce as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished sauce.
Madeira wine
Adds sweetness and a deep, fortified wine aroma to the sauce.
Pickled lemon
Adds sharp acidity that brightens the rich sauce.

The step that matters

Thickening the broth with butter and flour. Flour must be cooked into the butter and broth so it swells and thickens smoothly. Adding it raw or unmixed can leave lumps and a floury taste.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, madeira wine, 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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