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Fish, Sauce for Boiled

A sauce made from fish broth, onion, anchovy, walnut ketchup, veal gravy, butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Anchovy and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 479 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Fish, Sauce for Boiled

Ingredients

Directions

Simmer and strain

  1. Simmer the water from boiled fish with the onion, anchovy, and walnut ketchup for 15 minutes.

  2. Add the veal gravy and strain the mixture.

Thicken the sauce

  1. Thicken the sauce with butter and flour.

  2. Use 2 tablespoons of the fish broth for this quantity.

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. Anchovy + ketchuptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together479 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Fish + anchovytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together637 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Walnut + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Onion
Adds sweetness and aroma to the simmering liquid.
Anchovy
Adds salty, savoury depth that rounds out the broth.
Walnut ketchup
Adds concentrated savoury, salty flavour to the sauce.
Veal gravy
Gives body and rich, meaty flavour to the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and a smooth, glossy richness to the finished sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells in the hot liquid.

The step that matters

Thicken the sauce with butter and flour. Flour thickens only when its starch is fully dispersed and heated in the liquid. Adding it gradually while stirring lets the granules swell evenly, preventing lumps and a floury taste.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, anchovy, walnut, ketchup, veal, butter, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, anchovy, walnut, ketchup, veal, butter, flour. 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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