Skip to main content
Sauce

White Sauce for Fish

A creamy anchovy-based sauce for fish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

White Sauce for Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Simmer anchovies, white wine, vinegar, and onion until anchovies dissolve.

  2. Strain the mixture.

Finish the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan, then gradually stir in the flour until smooth.

  2. Slowly add the cream while stirring, ensuring it does not boil.

  3. Heat thoroughly and serve in a sauce-tureen.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. White wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. White wine + oniontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,535 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Anchovies
Dissolve into the liquid to add a deep, savory background flavor.
Butter
Enriches the sauce with fat and richness, carrying flavor and giving a smooth mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the butter and cream into a smooth, stable sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and body, giving the sauce a smooth, velvety texture.
White wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the simmering base.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that brightens the flavor of the base.

The step that matters

Slowly add the cream while stirring, ensuring it does not boil.. Adding cream gradually while stirring keeps the flour-thickened butter smooth and prevents lumps. Letting the sauce boil can cause the dairy to separate and the texture to break.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white wine, vinegar, onion, butter, flour, cream):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, vinegar, onion, butter, flour, cream. 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.

You might also like

Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)186 recipesWine Sauce for Sweet PuddingsWine Sauce for Sweet Puddings6 recipesCaper SauceCaper Sauce180 recipesBrown SauceBrown Sauce141 recipes