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Sauce

Modern Cookery

A sauce made from lemon rind, sugar, water, butter, flour, wine, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Wine and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,427 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓

Modern Cookery

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Combine the lemon rind, sugar, and water in a saucepan.

  2. Cook for 15 minutes.

Finish the sauce

  1. Add the butter and flour, stirring for 1 minute.

  2. Mix in the wine and brandy.

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. Wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Lemon + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Lemon rind
Adds bright citrus aroma and flavor from its aromatic oils.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the lemon and alcohol.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells in the hot liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the sauce.
Wine
Adds liquid and a fruity, acidic depth of flavor.
Brandy
Adds a warm, aromatic flavor that complements the lemon.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour and butter. Flour added to hot liquid can clump, leaving lumps. Stirring constantly disperses the flour particles so its starch can swell evenly and thicken the sauce smoothly.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, flour, wine, brandy. 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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