Skip to main content
Sauce

Currant Sauce

A sauce made with currants, butter, flour, water, red wine, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Currant Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the flour and stir to form a roux.

  3. Gradually add the water, stirring constantly until smooth.

  4. Add the currants, red wine, and lemon juice.

  5. Simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally until thickened.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Currant + red winetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together113 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Butter + red winetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,599 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  5. Currant + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,856 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

Currants
Provide the fruity flavour and tartness that define the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour in the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the liquid with the butter to form a roux that sets the sauce.
Red wine
Adds depth and acidity to the fruit flavour.
Lemon juice
Brightens the flavour with acidity, balancing the sweetness of the currants.

The step that matters

Adding the water to the roux. Adding liquid gradually while stirring constantly keeps the starch dispersed, so the sauce becomes smooth instead of lumpy.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, red wine, lemon):

  1. Plumfits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, red wine, lemon. 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.

More currant sauce recipes

for Venison 10Red 7Venison 3 See all 44 →

You might also like

Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)186 recipesCurrant Jelly SauceCurrant Jelly Sauce32 recipesHot Lemon Cream SauceHot Lemon Cream Sauce11 recipesWine Sauce for Sweet PuddingsWine Sauce for Sweet Puddings6 recipes