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Sauce

Spanish Sauce

A simple sauce made with corn starch, boiling water, vinegar, butter, and sugar.

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

Why it works: Corn and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,345 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Spanish Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Dissolve the corn starch in boiling water.

  2. Add vinegar, butter, and sugar to the mixture.

Brown the sugar

  1. In a small pan, stir 1 cup of sugar over heat until it turns brown (do not scorch).

  2. Add 1 cup of boiling water to the browned sugar and simmer for 15 minutes.

Cool

  1. Set aside to cool.

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. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

  2. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

  3. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Corn + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Corn starch
Thickens the sauce as it is heated in water, giving it body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, when browned, a deep caramel flavour.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Browning the sugar. Sugar caramelises at high heat, which gives the sauce its flavour. If it scorches, it turns bitter and the sauce cannot be rescued, so watch it closely and stop as soon as it is brown.

“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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