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Sauce

Fish Sauce Without Butter

A sauce made from vinegar, water, onion, horse-radish, cloves, mace, black pepper, anchovies, catsup, and egg yolks.

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 infusion

  1. Simmer vinegar and water with onion, horse-radish, cloves, mace, and black pepper until the onion is tender.

  2. Chop the onion small with the anchovies.

  3. Boil the mixture for a few minutes with catsup.

Finish the sauce

  1. Beat the egg yolks and strain them.

  2. Gradually mix the strained liquid with the yolks.

  3. Set the saucepan over low heat, tossing the contents to prevent curdling.

  4. Heat until it resembles melted butter without boiling.

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
Emulsify and thicken the sauce, giving it a smooth, rich body when gently heated.
Vinegar
Provides sharp acidity that balances the savory flavours and sharpens the sauce.
Anchovies
Contribute deep savoury, umami flavour that becomes part of the sauce base.
Horse-radish
Adds pungent aroma and sharp heat as it steeps in the hot liquid.

The step that matters

Heat until it resembles melted butter without boiling. Egg yolks scramble and curdle if they get too hot. Gentle, low heat with constant tossing lets the yolks thicken the liquid into a smooth emulsion instead.

Swap the mace

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

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

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