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Sauce

Sabayon Sauce

A sauce made by whisking sherry, sugar, and egg over low heat until thickened.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Sabayon Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine sherry, sugar, and beaten egg.

  2. Beat the mixture with a Dover beater over low heat until it begins to thicken.

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. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sherry + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg
Coagulates as it heats, thickening the sauce into a light, foamy custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the sabayon and helps stabilize the foam as it thickens.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aroma, and thins the mixture so it can foam.

The step that matters

Beating over low heat until it begins to thicken. Egg proteins set at moderate temperatures, so heat that is too high scrambles the egg. Gentle, constant beating over low heat incorporates air and thickens the mixture smoothly.

“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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