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Sauce

Wine Sauce

A sweet sauce made from sugar, butter, and wine, seasoned with nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Wine Sauce

Why it works: Nutmeg and flour 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

Make the sauce

  1. Dissolve the sugar in a little water and boil until nearly candied.

  2. Melt the butter, sugar, and Madeira wine together in a stewpan with a little boiling water.

  3. Mull the butter with a little flour and stir it into the boiling water quickly.

  4. Add the sugar, then the wine.

  5. Add the butter just before removing from heat, then stir in wine and nutmeg to taste.

Finish and serve

  1. Cream the butter with the egg yolks and brown sugar, then add the wine and stir until cold.

  2. Grate nutmeg over the sauce 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.

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.

  1. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Egg yolks
Add richness and help emulsify the creamed butter into a smooth, thick sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel as it melts into the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce slightly when mulled with butter and stirred into boiling liquid.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, when boiled, builds body and a glossy texture.
Madeira wine
Contributes flavour and acidity that balances the sweetness of the sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring the butter and flour into boiling water. Adding the butter-flour mixture to boiling liquid and stirring quickly disperses the flour before it clumps, giving a smooth rather than lumpy sauce.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Thymefits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

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