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Sauce

Lemon Sauce

A simple sauce made by boiling lemon slices, thickening with cornstarch, sweetening with sugar, and optionally adding beaten egg.

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

Why it works: Lemon and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Lemon Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Add lemon slices to boiling water.

  2. Thicken with cornstarch.

  3. Remove lemon slices and cook until clear.

  4. Stir in sugar and lemon juice.

  5. If desired, add beaten egg and boil briefly.

Cool and serve

  1. Cool 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 + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

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

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

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

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Cornstarch
Starch that swells when boiled, thickening the liquid into a sauce.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the lemon.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright lemon flavour to the sauce.
Lemon slices
Infuse the hot water with lemon aroma and flavour before being removed.
Egg
Optional; its proteins set when heated, adding body and richness to the sauce.

The step that matters

Cook the cornstarch until clear. Cornstarch only thickens fully once the liquid reaches a boil, and it can clump if not stirred well as it is added. Cooking it until clear shows the starch has gelatinised and the sauce has reached full thickness.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Datesfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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