Skip to main content
Main

Wine Sauce

A sauce made with water, corn starch, butter, sugar, egg, nutmeg, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Wine 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 ↓

Wine Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the starch base

  1. Wet the corn starch in cold water.

  2. Stir the wet corn starch into the boiling water.

  3. Boil for 10 minutes.

  4. Once the corn starch is cooked, add the wine.

Make the butter and egg mixture

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the beaten egg and nutmeg.

Combine and serve

  1. Pour the boiling mixture into the egg mixture and stir until well combined.

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. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 sauce as it cooks and gelatinises in boiling water.
Egg
Adds richness and helps bind and thicken the creamed mixture.
Butter
Adds fat and a smooth, rich texture to the creamed base.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps cream the butter into a light base.
Wine
Adds acidity and flavour to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Boiling the corn starch mixture. Corn starch must reach a boil and cook fully to thicken and lose its raw starchy taste. Adding the wine after cooking keeps its flavour and acidity intact.

Swap the nutmeg

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

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

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

More wine sauce recipes

Port 17for Puddings 13White 12Rich 10Currant 9for Venison 8 See all 178 →

You might also like

Corn FrittersCorn Fritters203 recipesCream of Corn SoupCream of Corn Soup50 recipesGreen Corn SoupGreen Corn Soup46 recipesCornmeal GruelCornmeal Gruel41 recipes