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Cockle Sauce

Sauce made with butter, flour, cockle liquor, anchovy paste, vinegar, and cockles.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cockle Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, mix the butter and flour until well combined.

  2. Melt the mixture with the liquor from the cockles.

  3. Add the anchovy paste or small fish and vinegar, stirring well.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the cockles and shake the pan for 2-3 minutes.

  2. Serve the sauce in boats.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Flour + anchovytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,753 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Anchovy + vinegartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,008 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + vinegartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Butter
Adds richness and fat, and carries the flour into a smooth base.
Flour
Thickens the butter and liquor into a sauce that coats the cockles.
Cockle liquor
Adds the sea-based flavour that makes the sauce taste of cockles.
Anchovy paste or small fish
Adds savoury depth and salty, umami notes to the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the richness of the butter.
Cockles
Provide the main shellfish flavour and chewy texture in the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the cockles and shaking the pan. Cockles are shellfish, and proteins toughen quickly with heat. Adding them at the end and heating only briefly keeps them tender and stops them turning rubbery in the sauce.

“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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