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Lemon Sauce

A sweet and tart sauce made from sugar, cornstarch, lemon juice, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

Make the sauce

  1. Sift together the sugar, cornstarch, and salt.

  2. Slowly add the boiling water while beating constantly.

  3. Cook for 5 minutes, then remove from heat.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the butter, lemon juice, and grated lemon rind.

  2. Add a few grains of nutmeg if desired.

  3. Strain the sauce before serving.

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

Cornstarch
Thickens the liquid into a smooth, glossy sauce as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the sugar.
Fine granulated sugar
Sweetens the sauce and helps balance the lemon's tartness.

The step that matters

Add the boiling water slowly while beating. Adding the hot water gradually while beating keeps the dry starch dispersed, preventing lumps. Cornstarch needs heat to thicken, so the mixture must be cooked after the water is added.

Swap the nutmeg

The recipe marks nutmeg as optional. 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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