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Brown Fish Sauce

A sauce made from trout, vinegar, bay leaves, water, pepper, lemons, salt, raisins, sugar, cinnamon, cloves, and gingersnaps.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Brown Fish Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Combine trout, vinegar, bay leaves, water, whole pepper, sliced lemons, salt, raisins, sugar, cinnamon, and cloves in a pot.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil, then add ½ cup cold water to stop the boiling.

  3. Add the soaked gingersnaps and bring to a boil again.

Store

  1. Pour the sauce into a jar and let it sit for use the next day.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Trout
Provides the main fish flavor and body that the sauce is built around.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the sauce and helps preserve it.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp vinegar and lemon.
Gingersnaps
Thicken the sauce slightly and add spiced sweetness and body.
Raisins
Add sweetness and a soft, fruity body to the sauce.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, pepper, lemon, sugar, cinnamon, clove):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, pepper, lemon, sugar, cinnamon, clove. 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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