Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Fish Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Make the sauce base
Beat the butter and flour together in a bowl.
Add salt and pepper to the mixture.
Bring the water to a boil in a saucepan.
Add the butter-flour mixture to the boiling water.
Boil for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Finish with egg yolks
Beat the egg yolks in a separate bowl.
Place the bowl with the yolks over a double boiler.
Pour the sauce over the yolks.
Let the sauce stand in the boiling water for 2 minutes.
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.
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Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,404 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
- Butter
- Adds richness and a smooth, velvety body to the sauce.
- Flour
- Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the butter and water.
- Egg yolks
- Enrich and thicken the sauce gently when heated over simmering water.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the rich sauce.
The step that matters
Pouring the sauce over the yolks over a double boiler. Egg yolks thicken at gentle heat and can scramble if they get too hot. Keeping the water below a hard boil and stirring the sauce in steadily helps the yolks thicken smoothly instead of curdling.
“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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