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Sauce

Quin's Fish Sauce

A preserved anchovy-based sauce made with walnut and mushroom pickles, white wine, mace, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and white wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,765 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity. The science ↓

Quin's Fish Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Combine all ingredients in a stone jar.

  2. Let the mixture stand for three weeks.

Finish

  1. Strain the sauce into small bottles for use.

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. Mushroom + white winetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  2. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Walnut + mushroomtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together763 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  4. Walnut + peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,039 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. White wine + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,433 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Anchovies
Provide the salty, savoury backbone that gives the sauce its umami depth.
Walnut pickle
Supplies the main liquid base and its distinctive dark, tangy flavour.
Mushroom pickle
Adds earthy, savoury depth to the liquid base of the sauce.
White wine
Adds acidity and a light sharpness that brightens the sauce.

The step that matters

Letting the mixture stand for three weeks. Time allows the anchovies and pickles to break down and blend slowly, so flavours mellow and deepen. Rushing this stage leaves the sauce harsh and unbalanced.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (walnut, mushroom, white wine, pepper):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, mushroom, white wine, pepper. 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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