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The Melted Butter for Fish

A melted butter sauce flavored with anchovy essence, soy, mushroom ketchup, cayenne, Philli vinegar, or lemon juice, served warm over fish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

The Melted Butter for Fish

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter until it is thick enough to adhere to the fish.

  2. Dilute the melted butter with your choice of Essence of Anchovy, Soy, Mushroom Catsup, Cayenne, Philli Vinegar, or Lemon Juice.

  3. Serve the sauce warm over the fish.

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 + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Mushroom + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,633 recipes

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

  4. Anchovy + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,080 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Forms the rich base of the sauce and gives it body and a coating texture on the fish.
Essence of anchovy
Adds a savory, salty depth that enriches the butter's flavor.
Soy
Contributes salt and savory umami to round out the sauce.
Mushroom catsup
Adds concentrated savory umami flavor to the butter.
Philli vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that cuts through the richness of the butter.
Lemon juice
Adds bright acidity that lightens the heavy butter.

The step that matters

Melt the butter until it is thick enough to adhere to the fish. Butter is an emulsion of fat, water and milk solids. Heating it gently keeps it smooth and cohesive, while overheating can separate the fat from the solids and leave a thin, greasy coating that will not cling to the fish.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Plumfits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Grapefits about as well
  4. Cherryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, anchovy, mushroom, vinegar. 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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