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Sauce

Ginger Sauce

A sauce made with ginger, lemon, brandy, and butter, thickened with corn starch.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Ginger Sauce

Why it works: Ginger and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Ginger Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Dilute corn starch with a little water.

  2. Stir in brandy, ginger syrup, and lemon juice.

  3. Cook for 5 minutes.

  4. Add finely chopped ginger, grated lemon rind, and butter.

  5. Serve hot or cold.

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. Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

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

  2. Corn + gingertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together412 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Corn + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Brandy + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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 when cooked in liquid, giving it body.
Brandy
Adds a warm, aromatic alcoholic flavour to the sauce.
Ginger syrup
Adds sweetness and gingery flavour to the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and balances the flavour.
Finely chopped ginger
Provides fresh, sharp ginger flavour and some texture.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, glossy finish to the sauce.

The step that matters

Dilute corn starch with a little water.. Cornstarch clumps if added directly to hot liquid. Mixing it into cold water first lets the granules disperse evenly so the sauce thickens smoothly when heated.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, brandy, syrup, lemon, butter):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, brandy, syrup, lemon, butter. 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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