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Mint Sauce

A sauce of mint, butter, vinegar, sugar, eggs, and paprika, served hot with game, mutton, lamb, or fresh fish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and sugar 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

Make the sauce

  1. Heat the butter in a frying pan until hot but not browned.

  2. Add the mint leaves and stir gently without cooking.

  3. Pour in the vinegar and add the sugar, stirring to combine.

  4. Quickly pour the hot mixture over the beaten eggs while beating rapidly.

Serve

  1. Serve hot with game, mutton, lamb, or fresh fish.

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. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thicken the sauce into a creamy, emulsified texture when heated by the hot mixture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying the mint flavour and giving the sauce a smooth body.
Vinegar
Adds sharpness that balances the richness of the eggs and butter.
Sugar
Softens the sharp acidity of the vinegar, giving a rounder flavour.
Mint leaves
Provide the main aroma and fresh herbal flavour of the sauce.

The step that matters

Pour the hot mixture over the eggs while beating rapidly. Eggs thicken when heated, but if the hot liquid is added too slowly or not stirred, the eggs can scramble into lumps. Pouring quickly while beating spreads the heat evenly so the sauce stays smooth.

Swap the mint

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, vinegar, sugar, egg. 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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