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Lemon Sauce

A sweet lemon sauce made with butter, sugar, lemon juice and rind, nutmeg, and boiled water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Lemon Sauce

Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Lemon Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, stir together the butter and sugar.

  2. Add the lemon juice, lemon rind, and nutmeg.

  3. Beat the mixture hard, adding the boiling water one tablespoon at a time.

  4. Set the bowl over a kettle of steaming water and stir constantly until well combined.

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 + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  2. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

Sugar and lemon 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

Butter
Creams with the sugar to add richness and a smooth, silky texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the sauce and helps aerate the butter when beaten together.
Lemon
Its juice adds acidity and its rind adds bright aroma.
Boiling water
Loosens the mixture and helps it emulsify into a smooth, pourable sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the boiling water gradually. Adding the water one tablespoon at a time while beating lets the fat and liquid emulsify. Dumping it in at once can cause the butter to separate and the sauce to look greasy or curdled.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Nutmegthe original
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, lemon. 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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