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Cod Sauce

A sauce made with vinegar, water, onion, horseradish, spices, anchovies, ketchup, and egg yolks, simmered and thickened.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Cod Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the infusion

  1. Simmer vinegar and water gently in a saucepan.

  2. Add onion, horseradish, and bruised spices.

  3. Cook until the onion is tender.

Flavour and strain

  1. Chop the onion small with anchovies.

  2. Return the mixture to the heat.

  3. Add ketchup and boil for a few minutes.

  4. Beat the egg yolks in a bowl.

  5. Strain the beaten yolks.

Thicken the sauce

  1. Gradually mix the hot liquid with the yolks, stirring constantly.

  2. Place the saucepan over low heat.

  3. Shake the saucepan to prevent curdling.

  4. Heat until the sauce thickens to the consistency of melted 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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Onion + horseradishtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Horseradish + clovetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Horseradish + ketchuptop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together223 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 body and a smooth texture.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the richness of the yolks and the savoury flavours.
Anchovies
Contribute a deep, salty savoury backbone that rounds out the sauce.
Onion
Provides savoury sweetness and body once cooked soft and chopped fine.
Horseradish
Adds a pungent, sharp aroma and bite to the sauce.

The step that matters

Shake the saucepan while adding the hot liquid to the yolks. Egg yolks scramble and curdle if they overheat or heat unevenly. Constant stirring or shaking and low heat spread the heat evenly, so the yolks thicken smoothly into a sauce.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, onion, horseradish, clove, pepper, ketchup, egg. 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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