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Sauce

Hot Mint Sauce

A hot sauce made with mint, stock, vinegar, sugar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,806 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Hot Mint Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Boil the stock in a saucepan.

  2. Add sugar and salt to the boiling stock.

  3. Wash the mint, remove stalks, and chop finely.

  4. Add the chopped mint and vinegar to the boiling stock just before serving.

Serve

  1. Serve in a hot sauceboat.

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

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

  2. Mint + vinegartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,376 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mint + sugartop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,592 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mint
Provides the fresh herb flavour and aroma that define the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds sharpness that balances the sweetness and cuts the richness of meat.
Sugar
Softens the sharpness of the vinegar and rounds out the flavour.
Clear stock
Forms the liquid base that dissolves the sugar and carries the mint.

The step that matters

Adding the mint and vinegar just before serving. Heat dulls fresh mint, causing it to lose its bright colour and aroma. Adding it at the end keeps the flavour fresh and vivid.

Swap the mint

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Peppermintfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, 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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