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Sauce

Fish Sauce

A sauce made with butter, tomato ketchup, and French mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,482 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Fish Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter in a pan.

  2. Add the tomato ketchup and bring to a boil.

  3. Serve immediately.

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. Tomato + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,482 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Ketchup + mustardtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together331 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Butter + tomatotop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,918 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + ketchuptop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together754 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, glossy body to the sauce.
Tomato ketchup
Provides the main tomato flavour, sweetness and acidity, and thickens as it boils.
French mustard
Adds sharp, tangy heat that balances the sweetness of the ketchup.

The step that matters

Bringing the sauce to a boil. Boiling the ketchup and butter together can make the sauce separate or scorch on the bottom of the pan if heat is too high. Keeping the heat moderate and stirring helps the mixture stay emulsified and smooth.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, ketchup, mustard. 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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