Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Lemon Sauce.
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Rub the lemon rind onto some sugar lumps.
Squeeze out the lemon juice and strain it.
Make the sauce
In a saucepan, melt the butter and flour over medium heat until pale brown.
Add the sherry, water, and strained lemon juice to the saucepan.
Crush the sugar lumps and stir them into the sauce until very sweet.
Once mixed and the sugar is melted, add the beaten egg yolks.
Stir continuously until the sauce thickens, but do not let it boil.
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.
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,505 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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
- Flour
- Thickens the butter and, with the egg yolks, gives the sauce body as it cooks.
- Butter
- Carries the flour and adds richness and a nutty flavour as it browns slightly.
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the sauce as they set with gentle heat, giving a smooth, rich texture.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the sauce and balances the sharpness of the lemon juice.
- Lemon
- Supplies the sour, aromatic flavour from its juice and the fragrant oils in its rind.
The step that matters
Stirring the egg yolks into the sauce. Egg yolks scramble if the sauce gets too hot. Stir constantly and keep the heat gentle so the proteins thicken the sauce smoothly instead of curdling it. Do not let it boil.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, sherry, sugar, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sherry, sugar, egg. 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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