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Sauce

Mint Sauce

A condiment made from fresh mint, sugar, and hot vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vinegar 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

Prepare the mint

  1. Pick the leaves from the mint stalks until you have ½ pint.

  2. Wash the leaves and drain them well.

Make the sauce

  1. Place the leaves in an earthenware bowl and chop them into very small pieces using a knife and fork.

  2. Stir in 1 tablespoon of sugar and mix thoroughly.

  3. Pour in ½ pint of hot vinegar, cover tightly, and serve after three minutes.

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. Sugar + vinegartop 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. Mint + sugartop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh mint leaves
Provide the main aromatic flavour and green herbal character of the sauce.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with a touch of sweetness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and softens the chopped mint as it steeps.

The step that matters

Chop the mint finely. Fine chopping releases the mint's oils and exposes more surface, so the flavour spreads through the hot vinegar. Large pieces leave the sauce weak and stringy.

Swap the mint

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar. 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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