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Sauce

Vinegar Sauce

A sweet and tangy sauce made with butter, flour, vinegar, molasses, sugar, water, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Vinegar Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Rub together the butter and flour in a saucepan.

  2. Add the vinegar, molasses (or brown sugar), sugar, and cold water.

  3. Stir until the mixture boils.

  4. Serve hot.

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. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 fat, giving the sauce a smoother mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it heats, giving it body.
Vinegar
Provides sharp acidity that balances the sweetness.
Molasses or brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a deep, caramel-like flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the acidity of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Stir until the mixture boils. Flour thickens only when the liquid reaches a boil and the starch swells. Stopping early leaves the sauce thin and floury-tasting, so keep stirring until it boils and thickens.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Jalapenofits about as well
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, vinegar, molasses, 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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