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Oyster Sauce for Fish

A sauce made from oysters, butter, flour, water, lemon, anchovy liquor, cayenne pepper, ketchup, and lemon peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Oyster Sauce for Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Blanch and strain the oysters, preserving their liquor.

  2. Wash, drain, and remove gills from the oysters.

Make the sauce

  1. In a stewpan, combine fresh butter and the oyster liquor free from sediment.

  2. Add flour and water to thicken the mixture.

  3. Season with lemon juice, anchovy liquor, Cayenne pepper, ketchup (if desired), and lemon peel.

  4. Bring to a boil, then let it simmer for five minutes.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  3. Oyster + anchovytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together603 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, 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

Oysters
Provide the main flavour and body of the sauce as they release their savoury liquor.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth sauce as it heats.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and oyster flavours.

The step that matters

Thickening with flour. Flour must be fully mixed into the liquid before heating, otherwise it clumps. Starch swells and thickens the sauce as it comes to a simmer, so the sauce should be stirred until smooth and gently cooked.

“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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