Name: Port Wine Sauce
Ingredients: ⅔ cup port wine; Juice of ½ lemon; 1 finely chopped shallot

Why it works: Lemon and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,523 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Port Wine Sauce

Ingredients

⅔ cup port wine
Juice of ½ lemon
1 finely chopped shallot

Directions

Combine port wine, lemon juice, and shallot in a saucepan.
Bring to a boil, then strain before serving.

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.

Lemon + shallottop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,523 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Port wine + shallottop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together380 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Port wine + lemontop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,100 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

Port wine: Provides the main liquid and a rich, fruity sweetness that forms the sauce's flavour base.
Shallot: Adds a mild, aromatic onion flavour that mellows as it cooks.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the port wine.