Why it works: Egg and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Strawberry Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth.
Add the sugar and beat again.
Mix in the salt.
Mash the strawberries and press them through a sieve.
Fold the mashed strawberries into the egg mixture.
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.
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Egg whites
- Whipped to a stiff froth, they trap air and give the sauce its light, airy body.
- Sugar
- Added to the whipped whites, it stabilises the foam and sweetens the sauce.
- Strawberries
- Mashed and sieved, they supply the fruit flavour, colour and moisture to the sauce.
The step that matters
Folding in the strawberries. Stirring instead of folding knocks air out of the whipped whites, so the sauce turns dense and loses its lightness. Fold gently with a spatula, cutting down through the middle and turning the bowl.
“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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