Why it works: Corn and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,165 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Wine Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
In a small saucepan, combine the water, sugar, and jam.
Mix the corn flour with a little cold water, then add it to the saucepan along with the lemon juice and sherry.
If the sauce is not a good color, add a few drops of cochineal.
Boil the mixture for five minutes, then strain it.
The sauce is now ready to serve.
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.
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Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,165 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Lemon + corntop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,927 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Lemon + flourtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,404 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sherry + lemontop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,273 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
- Corn flour
- Thickens the sauce as it heats, giving it body.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps balance the sherry and lemon juice.
- Sherry
- Adds wine flavour and aroma to the sauce.
- Jam
- Adds fruity sweetness and body to the sauce.
The step that matters
Adding the corn flour mixture. Corn flour must be dispersed in cold water first, then added to the warm liquid and boiled. Adding it dry or undissolved causes lumps, because the starch clumps before it can swell evenly.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sherry, sugar, corn, flour):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sherry, sugar, corn, flour. 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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