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Sauce

Foaming Sauce

A light sauce made from beaten egg whites, sugar, water, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Foaming Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the foam

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  2. In a saucepan, combine sugar and water; heat until boiling.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the wine, then gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

  2. Serve immediately.

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. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + winetop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together9,581 recipes

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

  3. Egg + winetop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptenal (green).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped into stiff peaks, they trap air and give the sauce its light, foamy structure.
Sugar
Dissolves into the boiling water to make a syrup that sweetens the sauce and helps stabilise the foam.
Wine
Adds flavour and acidity to the sauce.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the beaten egg whites. Stirring or deflating the whipped whites knocks out the trapped air, so the sauce loses its foam. Folding keeps the air bubbles intact.

“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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