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Sauce

Wine Sauce

A sauce made from red wine, water, egg yolks, sugar, lemon rind, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Wine Sauce

Why it works: Lemon and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Wine Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine red wine and water in a saucepan.

  2. Add egg yolks, sugar, lemon rind, and cinnamon.

  3. Place over medium heat and stir until the sauce thickens.

  4. Remove from heat and serve.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Red wine + cinnamontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together312 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they set gently with heat, giving it body and a smooth, rich texture.
Red wine
Provides the main liquid and flavour base, adding acidity and depth to the sauce.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the wine and lemon.
Lemon rind
Adds bright aromatic oils and a citrus note that lifts the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir over medium heat until the sauce thickens. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat, and if the sauce gets too hot they can scramble and turn grainy. Stir constantly and remove from heat as soon as it coats a spoon.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (red wine, egg, sugar, cinnamon):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Plumfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against red wine, egg, sugar, cinnamon. 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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