Skip to main content
Sauce

Herb Sauce: for Broiled Fish

A buttery herb sauce with shallot, parsley, mixed herbs, vinegar, pepper, salt, oil, and optional egg yolk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Herb Sauce: for Broiled Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped shallot and sauté until fragrant.

Add the herbs and vinegar

  1. Stir in the parsley and mixed herbs.

  2. Pour in enough vinegar to cover the herbs.

  3. Remove the saucepan from heat and let it simmer for 10 minutes.

Finish the sauce

  1. Before serving, add pepper, salt, and oil.

  2. If desired, stir in the egg yolk to thicken the sauce.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Shallot + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together266 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Marjoram + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together507 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Thyme + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,485 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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 rounded flavor, and carries the aromatics.
Shallot
Provides a mild, sweet onion aroma that forms the base of the sauce.
Parsley
Adds fresh, green flavor and color to the sauce.
Mixed herbs
Supply the main aromatic character of the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the herbs and balances the butter.
Egg yolk
Thickens the sauce as its proteins set gently with warmth.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk. Egg yolk proteins set at moderate heat, so a hot sauce can scramble and turn grainy. Stir the yolk in gently, off the heat, so the sauce thickens smoothly.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, shallot, parsley, thyme, marjoram, sage, chervil):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, shallot, parsley, thyme, marjoram, sage, chervil. 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.

You might also like

Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)186 recipesCaper SauceCaper Sauce180 recipesBrown SauceBrown Sauce141 recipesDutch SauceDutch Sauce74 recipes