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Sauce

Curried Oyster Sauce

A sauce made by reducing Espagnol sauce, stock, sherry, vinegar, anchovy sauce, and whiting bones with onion and bouquet garni.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and whiting match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 236 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Curried Oyster Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a stewpan, combine the Espagnol sauce, second stock, sherry, vinegar, and anchovy sauce.

  2. Bring to a boil and let it reduce.

  3. Skim off any foam and strain through a fine sieve.

Make the fish stock

  1. In another pot, place the chopped whiting bones, onion, and bouquet garni.

  2. Add ½ cup of second stock and simmer to extract flavor.

  3. Combine the strained sauce with the stock from the whiting bones.

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. Sauce + whitingtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together236 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Anchovy + whitingtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together82 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sherry + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together660 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  5. Vinegar + oniontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Espagnol sauce
Forms the thick, rich base that gives the sauce its body.
Second stock
Adds liquid and savory depth, thinning the sauce while carrying flavor.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aromatic complexity that brightens the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the richness of the sauce.
Anchovy sauce
Adds concentrated savory, salty umami depth to the sauce.
Whiting bones
Release gelatin and flavor into the stock that enriches the sauce.

The step that matters

Skim off any foam and strain through a fine sieve. Foam carries impurities that can make the sauce taste muddy and cloud its appearance. Straining through a fine sieve removes solids and leaves a smooth, clear texture.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, sherry, vinegar, anchovy, whiting):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, sherry, vinegar, anchovy, whiting. 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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