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Sabayon Sauce with Madeira

A light sauce made from egg yolks, powdered sugar, and Madeira wine, whisked over heat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 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 ↓

Sabayon Sauce with Madeira

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sabayon

  1. Combine the egg yolks and powdered sugar in a saucepan.

  2. Place the saucepan on a hot stove and whisk for 2 minutes.

  3. Gradually add the Madeira wine while stirring constantly for 2 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove from heat and strain through a fine sieve over the pudding.

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 + madeira winetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together343 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Egg + madeira winetop 38% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together445 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify and thicken the sauce as they heat, giving it a creamy, smooth body.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the sauce and dissolves easily into the yolks for a smooth texture.
Madeira wine
Adds acidity and aroma, thinning the custard while it is whisked in.

The step that matters

Whisking over heat. Yolks scramble if they get too hot too fast. Whisking constantly over moderate heat keeps the mixture smooth and thickened rather than grainy.

“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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