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Sauce

Lemon Sauce

A simple lemon sauce made with lemon rind, water, sugar, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Lemon Sauce

Why it works: Lemon and sherry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,273 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Lemon Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Place the lemon rind in a saucepan with the cold water.

  2. Simmer slowly for 20 minutes.

  3. Add the strained lemon juice and sugar, then boil for 3 minutes.

  4. Stir in the sherry and strain the sauce.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Lemon + sherrytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,273 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Sugar + sherrytop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,141 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Lemon juice
Provides the sharp, acidic flavour that defines the sauce.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the lemon's acidity.
Sherry
Adds aroma and a subtle depth of flavour to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Add the lemon juice and sugar, then boil for 3 minutes. Lemon juice is added only after the rind has simmered, so its bright flavour is not dulled by long cooking. Boiling briefly dissolves the sugar fully and blends the flavours without over-reducing the sauce.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, sherry. 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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