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Clear Lemon Sauce

A clear sauce made with lemon rind, lemon juice, butter, sugar, cornstarch, and boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Clear Lemon Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a small saucepan, mix the sugar and cornstarch thoroughly.

  2. Pour the boiling water over the mixture and stir constantly until it boils and becomes clear.

  3. Add the grated lemon rind, lemon juice, and butter.

  4. Stir until the butter melts and the sauce is ready to use.

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. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cornstarch
Thickens the liquid into a smooth, glossy sauce as it heats and gelatinizes.
Sugar
Sweetens the sauce and balances the sharpness of the lemon.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright lemon flavour.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the sauce a smooth mouthfeel.
Grated lemon rind
Adds aromatic lemon oils for fragrance without extra liquid.

The step that matters

Stir constantly while the mixture comes to a boil. Cornstarch can clump if the water is added without constant stirring, and it must reach a boil to fully thicken. Stirring keeps the starch dispersed so the sauce turns smooth and clear.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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