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Sauce

Ginger Sauce

A sweet and tangy sauce made with preserved ginger, ginger syrup, sugar, butter, cornstarch, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Ginger Sauce

Why it works: Ginger and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Ginger Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the preserved ginger into tiny blocks.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine the sugar and boiling water, and bring to a boil.

  2. Add the butter and cornstarch, which have been well blended.

  3. Stir constantly until the mixture is boiling and clear.

  4. Add the lemon juice, ginger syrup, and preserved ginger.

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. Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  4. Ginger + syruptop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together950 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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 sauce as it heats, giving it body and a glossy, clear finish.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the sauce and helps give it body once dissolved in the hot water.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the sauce.
Preserved ginger
Provides the main ginger flavor and bits of texture throughout the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and balances the ginger.

The step that matters

Stir constantly until the mixture is boiling and clear. Cornstarch can settle and scorch on the bottom of the pan or form lumps if not kept moving. It must reach a full boil to thicken properly and lose its starchy cloudiness.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerthe original
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, syrup, butter, lemon. 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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