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Sauce

Sabayon Sauce

A light sauce made from egg yolks, powdered sugar, and sherry, cooked over hot water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Sabayon Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Beat the yolks of the eggs until light-colored and thick.

  2. Add the powdered sugar and beat again.

Add the sherry and cook

  1. When ready to serve, add the sherry.

  2. Cook over hot water until slightly thickened, stirring constantly.

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. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + sherrytop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,141 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Egg + sherrytop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,324 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

Egg yolks
Thicken as they heat, giving the sauce its body and rich, custardy texture.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the sauce and dissolves easily into the beaten yolks.
Sherry
Adds its distinctive flavor and aroma to the sauce.

The step that matters

Cooking over hot water while stirring constantly. Egg yolk proteins set when heated, so gentle, even heat and constant stirring keep the sauce smooth and thickened. If the yolks get too hot or sit still, they can scramble and turn grainy.

“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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