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Sauce

Spanish Sauce

A thickened sauce made with boiling water, corn starch, vinegar, butter, sugar, and grated nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Spanish Sauce

Why it works: Corn and nutmeg work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 563 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Spanish Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine boiling water and corn starch, stirring until smooth.

  2. Add vinegar, butter, sugar, and grated nutmeg.

  3. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until thickened.

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. Corn + nutmegtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butter + sugartop 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

Corn starch
Thickens the liquid into a smooth sauce as it heats and gelatinises.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour of the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat for a rounder, richer mouthfeel and flavour.
Nutmeg
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour.

The step that matters

Stirring the starch into the water. Corn starch clumps when added to hot liquid without first being dispersed. Stirring it smooth in the water before heating lets the granules separate and then thicken evenly when cooked.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Nutmegthe original
  4. Gingerfits about as well

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