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Sauce

Transparent Sauce

A clear sauce made with sugar, corn starch, lemon, boiling water, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,927 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Transparent Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix together the sugar and corn-starch.

  2. Add the lemon slices.

Cook the sauce

  1. Slowly pour in the boiling water while stirring.

  2. Gradually add the butter.

  3. Boil until thick.

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. Corn + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

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

  2. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Sugar
Adds sweetness and body to the sauce as it dissolves in the liquid.
Corn-starch
Thickens the sauce as its starch granules swell and gelatinize when heated in liquid.
Boiling water
Dissolves the sugar and hydrates the starch so it can thicken the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother mouthfeel and a glossy finish.
Lemon
Adds a bright aroma and a touch of acidity to the sweet sauce.

The step that matters

Boil until thick. Corn-starch only thickens fully once the mixture reaches a full boil and the starch gelatinizes. Stopping early leaves the sauce thin and can leave a raw starchy taste.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, corn, butter):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, corn, butter. 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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