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Sauce

Melted Butter Sauce

A sauce of melted butter, lime juice, egg yolk, sugar, and sea salt.

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

Why it works: Butter and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Melted Butter Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg yolk and lime juice together.

  2. Strain the mixture to remove any solids.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the strained mixture to the melted butter just before serving.

  2. Stir well off the heat to prevent curdling.

  3. Season with a pinch of sugar and coarse sea salt to taste.

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. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Lime + sugartop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,332 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Butter + limetop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,339 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolk
Thickens the sauce and helps bind the butter and lime juice into a smooth emulsion.
Melted butter
Adds richness, body and a silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
Lime juice
Provides the bright acidity and fresh citrus aroma that define the sauce.
Sugar
Adds a slight sweetness that softens and balances the lime's acidity.

The step that matters

Stir well off the heat. Egg yolk thickens at a gentle temperature but scrambles and curdles if it gets too hot. Removing the pan from the heat and stirring thoroughly keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the lime

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Limethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, sugar. 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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