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Mint Sauce

A chilled sauce made from mint, sugar, lemon or vinegar, and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and mint are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,998 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Mint Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the mint leaves very finely.

  2. Pour boiling water over the chopped mint.

  3. Add sugar and cover closely.

  4. Let stand in a cool place for 30 minutes.

Finish

  1. Add lemon juice or vinegar.

  2. If using lemon juice, omit half of the sugar.

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. Lemon + minttop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,998 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Sugar + minttop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,592 recipes

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

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

Fresh mint leaves
Provides the main flavour and aroma, released into the hot water as the mint steeps.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the acid.
Lemon juice or vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and sharpens the sauce.

The step that matters

Let stand in a cool place for 30 minutes. Steeping lets the mint's aromatic oils and flavour compounds dissolve into the hot water and sugar. Chopping the mint very finely increases the surface area, so more flavour is extracted during this rest.

Swap the mint

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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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