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Sauce

Foaming Sauce

A light sauce made from beaten egg whites, sugar, water, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 ↓

Foaming Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth.

  2. Melt the sugar in the water over heat and let it boil.

  3. Stir in the wine and then gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

  4. Serve immediately.

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. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Sugar + winetop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together9,581 recipes

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

  3. Egg + winetop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptenal (green).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff froth, they trap air and give the sauce its light, foamy texture.
Sugar
Dissolves into the water and boils to a syrup, adding sweetness and body to the sauce.
Wine
Stirred into the syrup to add acidity and flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Stirring or deflating the whites knocks out the trapped air that gives the foam its lightness. Fold gently so the sauce stays airy, and serve it right away because foams slowly collapse as they stand.

“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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