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Sauce

Plain Lemon Sauce

A simple lemon sauce made from water, sugar, lemon juice, salt, and thickened with corn starch.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Evora Bucknum Perkins · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Plain Lemon Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine 1 cup water, ¾-1 cup sugar, and 2½-3 tablespoons oil of lemon.

  2. Heat the mixture to a boil.

  3. While the mixture is boiling, blend corn starch with cold water to make a slurry.

  4. Add the corn starch slurry to the boiling mixture and continue boiling until thickened.

  5. Remove the saucepan from the heat.

  6. Stir in ¾-1 tablespoon lemon juice and a trifle of salt.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

61Calories
0 gProtein
0 gFat
16 gCarbs

Counts 3 of 4 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 3 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Evora Bucknum Perkins. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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. 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

Corn starch (in the method)
Thickens the sauce as it boils, giving it body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharpness of the lemon.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright lemon flavour, stirred in off the heat.

The step that matters

Adding the cornstarch slurry. Starch must be fully dispersed in cold water before it goes into the boiling mixture, and the sauce must keep boiling until thickened. Starch added to hot liquid without stirring can clump, and it only thickens fully once it reaches a boil.

“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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