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Sauce

German Sauce

A sauce made from egg yolks, sherry, and sugar, cooked gently until frothy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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German Sauce

Why it works: Egg and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

German Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Whisk the egg yolks, sherry, and sugar together in a saucepan over gentle heat.

  2. Continue whisking until the mixture is cooked and frothy, but do not let it boil.

  3. Serve immediately.

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. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  2. Sherry + sugartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,141 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Egg + sherrytop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Cook and thicken into a light, frothy sauce that holds its body.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aroma that balance the richness of the yolks.
Sugar
Sweetens the sauce and helps stabilise the whisked foam as it cooks.

The step that matters

Keep the heat gentle and do not boil. Egg yolks begin to scramble above about 70°C, so gentle heat with constant whisking cooks them smoothly. Boiling curdles the sauce and loses its frothy texture.

“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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