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Crayfish Sauce

A sauce made from boiled crayfish, carrot, onion, parsley, bay leaf, mace, peppercorns, fish stock, cream, anchovy essence, and carmine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Crayfish Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the crayfish and broth

  1. Wash the live crayfish thoroughly in several waters to remove sand.

  2. In a saucepan, combine 2 quarts of water, half a scraped carrot, sliced onion, mace, peppercorns, bay leaf, and parsley.

  3. Bring to a boil.

  4. Drop in the crayfish and cover immediately.

  5. Boil for 20 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. In another saucepan, melt 2 oz of butter.

  2. Stir in 2 oz of flour.

  3. Cook without browning.

  4. Add a small dust of cayenne pepper.

  5. Pour in 1½ cups of fish stock and stir until it boils.

  6. Boil for 5 minutes.

  7. Add ⅓ cup of cream, a few drops of carmine, and 1 teaspoon of anchovy essence.

Finish

  1. Shell the crayfish, setting aside the meat from the claws and tails to add to the sauce later.

  2. Scrape out any meat from the heads and add it to 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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Crayfish + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together343 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  5. Butter + fishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Crayfish
Provide the main flavour and the meat that is added to the finished sauce.
Butter
Carries the flour and gives the sauce a rich, smooth fat base.
Flour
Thickens the butter into a roux that gives the sauce body.
Fish stock
Forms the liquid of the sauce, adding savoury seafood flavour.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother, silkier texture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Cook the roux without browning. The butter and flour must be cooked gently until bubbling but pale. Browning changes the flavour and colour of the sauce, and the flour must be cooked enough to lose its raw taste before the stock is added.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (crayfish, carrot, onion, parsley, butter, flour, fish):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against crayfish, carrot, onion, parsley, butter, flour, fish. 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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