Wine Sauce

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 + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
   Smell alikemoderate
   Cooked together3,505 recipes

   Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

2. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
   Smell alikemoderate
   Cooked together41,227 recipes

   Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

3. Sherry + lemontop 17% of all pairs
   Smell alikemoderate
   Cooked together3,273 recipes

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

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

   Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

5. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
   Smell alikelow
   Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Butter

Adds richness and a smooth, silky body to the sauce.

Sherry

Adds wine flavour and aroma that gives the sauce its character.

Lemon juice

Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and balances the richness of the butter.

Sugar

Adds sweetness that rounds out the acidity and wine flavour.

Swap the lemon

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

1. Vanillafits better
2. Figfits better
3. Applefits better
4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sherry, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.