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Sauce

Spanish Sauce

A sweet and tangy 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, and sugar, and mix well.

  3. Grate nutmeg into the mixture and stir until combined.

  4. Cook over medium heat until the sauce thickens.

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 sauce as it heats, giving it body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharp vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Cook over medium heat until the sauce thickens. Starch granules swell and thicken the liquid only when it reaches a simmer. Stopping early leaves the sauce thin, while overheating can break it or scorch the sugar.

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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