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Sauce

Egg and Wine Sauce

A sauce made by whisking egg with sherry and hot milk, served immediately.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and sherry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,479 recipes. Both carry 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine, which smells cocoa, roasted. The science ↓

Egg and Wine Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Beat the egg well and mix in the sherry.

  2. Pour the almost boiling milk into the egg mixture while whisking quickly until it froths.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately.

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. Milk + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,479 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  2. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  3. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Sherry + sugartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,141 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Egg
Thickens the sauce as it cooks gently in the hot milk, giving it body and a light texture.
Milk
Forms the base of the sauce and provides moisture and a creamy, smooth body.
Sherry
Adds acidity and a wine flavour that balances the sweetness of the sauce.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot milk into the egg mixture. Adding the milk too quickly or while the egg is cold can scramble the egg instead of smoothly thickening the sauce. Whisking constantly spreads the heat evenly so the egg proteins set into a smooth, frothy sauce.

“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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