Why it works: Egg and sugar 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 ↓
Foamy Sauce I
Ingredients
Directions
Beat the yolk of the egg until very thick.
Gradually add the sugar and flavoring.
Fold in the stiffly beaten egg white.
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.
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Egg yolk
- Thickens and enriches the sauce, giving it body when beaten until very thick.
- Egg white
- Stiffly beaten and folded in, it adds airy foam and a light texture.
- Fruit sugar
- Sweetens the sauce and helps stabilize the beaten yolk as it is added gradually.
The step that matters
Fold in the stiffly beaten egg white. Folding gently keeps the air trapped in the beaten white. Stirring or overmixing deflates the foam, leaving the sauce flat and dense instead of light.
“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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