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Sauce

Mint Sauce

A condiment made from mint leaves, vinegar, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,806 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Mint Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Use only the leaves and tender tips of the mint.

  2. Dissolve the sugar in the vinegar.

  3. Add the vinegar mixture to the chopped mint.

  4. Let the sauce stand for one hour.

Serve

  1. Heat the sauce over hot water just before serving.

  2. If the vinegar is very strong, add more sugar to taste.

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.

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. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Mint + vinegartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,376 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mint + sugartop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Fresh mint leaves
Provides the main flavour and aroma of the sauce.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that gives the sauce its tang.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.

The step that matters

Dissolving the sugar in the vinegar before adding the mint. Sugar dissolves far more readily in warm or fully mixed liquid than in a cold mass of leaves. Dissolving it first gives an even sweetness throughout the sauce, so the vinegar does not taste harsh in some spoonfuls and sugary in others.

Swap the mint

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Peppermintfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar. 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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