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Sauce

Lemon Butter

A sauce made by boiling water, sugar, lemon juice and rind, then adding eggs, starch, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,927 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Lemon Butter

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil water, sugar, lemon juice, and grated rind together.

  2. Beat eggs until very light.

  3. Add dissolved corn starch to the eggs and stir into the boiling mixture.

  4. Boil for a few minutes, then add the butter and stir until melted.

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. Lemon + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

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

  2. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thicken the sauce as they set when beaten and stirred into the hot liquid.
Corn starch
Thickens the liquid as it heats, giving the sauce body.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel as it melts in.
Lemons
Provide the sharp acidity and aroma that define the sauce.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the lemon with sweetness.

The step that matters

Stirring the eggs and starch into the boiling mixture. Eggs can scramble if they meet very hot liquid without enough stirring. Keeping the mixture moving while it thickens helps the egg proteins and starch set smoothly rather than in lumps.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, corn, butter. 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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