Name: Five Fish Sauces
Ingredients: 2 tablespoons butter; 1 tablespoon cornstarch; 1 cup hot water; chopped chives (optional); salt to taste; white pepper to taste; a dash of Worcestershire sauce; milk (optional); hard-boiled eggs (optional)

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Five Fish Sauces

Ingredients

Directions

In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.
Add the cornstarch and blend until smooth.
Cook until it bubbles, then gradually add the hot water.
Stir continuously until the sauce thickens to a cream-like consistency.
If desired, mix in chopped chives, salt, white pepper, and Worcestershire sauce.
For a white sauce, add milk and stir well.
To serve with salt codfish, mix in chopped hard-boiled eggs.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,338 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Butter + chivetop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,097 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Swap the chive

The recipe marks chive as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, white pepper, sauce, milk, egg):

Potatofits better
Capsicumfits better
Asparagusfits about as well
Chivethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, white pepper, sauce, milk, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.