Why it works: Corn and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,927 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Wine Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Make the sauce base
In a saucepan, combine water, sugar, and butter over medium heat until hot.
Mix corn starch with a little cold water and stir the mixture into the saucepan.
Stir until it boils for 2 minutes.
Remove from heat.
Thicken and flavour
Beat the yolks with a spoonful of cold water and stir the yolks into the saucepan.
Return to heat and stir until the mixture thickens, but do not let it boil.
Add the wine and lemon extract.
Heat until hot but not scalding.
Finish with egg whites
Beat the egg whites with 1 teaspoon of sugar until stiff.
Gently fold the egg whites into the sauce.
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.
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Corn + lemontop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,927 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Wine + lemontop 13% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together6,157 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Wine + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,645 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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Sherry + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,505 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,345 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Corn starch
- Thickens the sauce as it heats and gelatinises in the liquid.
- Eggs
- Yolks thicken the sauce gently, and whites are folded in for a light texture.
- Sherry wine
- Adds acidity and aroma to the sauce.
- White granulated sugar
- Adds sweetness and balances the wine's acidity.
- Fresh butter
- Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the sauce.
The step that matters
Thicken without boiling. Once the yolks go in, the sauce must only thicken, not boil. Boiling can curdle the egg yolks and cause the sauce to turn grainy and lose its smooth texture.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sherry, wine, sugar, corn, butter, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Applefits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sherry, wine, sugar, corn, butter, 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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