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Sauce

Lemon Sauce

A simple lemon sauce made with water, sugar, lemon rind, cornstarch, butter, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Lemon Sauce

Why it works: Lemon and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Lemon Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix cornstarch with sugar.

  2. In a saucepan, combine sugar, water, cornstarch, and lemon rind.

Cook and finish

  1. Cook over medium heat for 10 minutes.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in butter and lemon juice.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. 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

Cornstarch
Thickens the sauce as it heats in the liquid, giving it body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the tartness of the lemon.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright lemon flavor.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, glossier finish.
Lemon rind
Adds aromatic lemon oils for fragrance and flavor.

The step that matters

Cook the cornstarch mixture. Cornstarch only thickens fully when the mixture reaches a simmer or boil and is stirred, so it stays smooth. Undercooked cornstarch leaves a thin sauce with a starchy taste.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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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