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Fish Sauce 'without Butter

A sauce made from vinegar, water, onion, horseradish, cloves, mace, pepper, anchovies, ketchup, and egg yolks, thickened like butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Horse and radish work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 529 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyraldehyde, which smells malty, chocolate. The science ↓

Fish Sauce 'without Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce base

  1. Simmer vinegar and water with onion, horseradish, and spices until onion is tender.

  2. Chop the onion small with anchovies and boil for a few minutes with ketchup.

Thicken with egg yolks

  1. Beat the egg yolks and strain them.

  2. Gradually mix the hot liquid with the yolks, stirring constantly over gentle heat.

  3. Do not boil; heat until thickened like butter.

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. Horse + radishtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together529 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Vinegar + radishtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together508 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Radish + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together196 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they set gently with heat, giving it a smooth, rich body.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the richness of the yolks.
Anchovies
Contribute savory depth and a salty, umami note to the sauce.
Horse-radish
Adds pungent heat and aroma to the sauce.

The step that matters

Do not boil the sauce once the yolks go in. Egg yolks scramble when they get too hot, turning grainy instead of smooth. Gentle heat, with constant stirring, lets the proteins thicken the liquid evenly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, onion, horse, radish, clove, pepper, ketchup):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, onion, horse, radish, clove, pepper, ketchup. 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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