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Sauce

Mint Sauce

A chilled sauce made from mint, sugar, vinegar, and white pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vinegar 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

  1. Bruise the mint with the sugar.

  2. Slowly pour in the vinegar while stirring until the sugar is fully dissolved.

  3. Serve cold.

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. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

  2. Mint + white peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together95 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Vinegar + white peppertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. 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
Supplies the herbal aroma and fresh flavour that define the sauce.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the sauce and balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that gives the sauce its sharp, tangy bite.

The step that matters

Slowly pour in the vinegar while stirring. Adding vinegar gradually while stirring lets the sugar dissolve fully into it. Undissolved sugar leaves a gritty texture and an uneven balance of sweet and sour.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Peppermintfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mint, sugar, vinegar. 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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