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Gooseberry Sauce

A sauce made by cooking green gooseberries with wine and powdered sugar, then mixing the pulp into butter sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and white wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,083 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Gooseberry Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gooseberries

  1. Prepare 1 pint of butter sauce.

  2. In a small saucepan, boil 1 pound of green gooseberries in water for 5 minutes.

  3. Drain the gooseberries and place them in a small saucepan with ½ cup of white wine and 3 ounces of powdered sugar.

  4. Gently cook the gooseberries, then rub them through a fine sieve.

Finish the sauce

  1. Add the resulting pulp to the butter sauce.

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. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Sauce + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sauce + white winetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together819 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Green gooseberries
Provide the tart fruit flavour and the pulp that gives the sauce its body.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the tartness of the gooseberries.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma while the gooseberries cook down.
Butter sauce
Forms the rich, creamy base that the gooseberry pulp is stirred into.

The step that matters

Rubbing the gooseberries through a fine sieve. Gooseberry skins and seeds stay behind in the sieve, so pressing only the softened pulp gives a smooth sauce. Cooking gently keeps the fruit from breaking down into a bitter, uneven texture.

“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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