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Sauce

Fish Sauce Without Butter

A sauce made from vinegar, water, onion, horseradish, cloves, mace, black pepper, anchovies, ketchup, and egg yolks, thickened to a butter‑like consistency.

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 ↓

Fish Sauce Without Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce base

  1. Simmer vinegar and water gently with onion, horseradish, cloves, mace, and black pepper until the onion is tender.

  2. Chop the onion small with the anchovies and boil the mixture for a few minutes with ketchup.

Thicken with egg yolks

  1. Beat the egg yolks well and strain them.

  2. Gradually mix the hot liquid with the egg yolks, stirring constantly.

  3. Place the saucepan over gentle heat, tossing the sauce to prevent curdling, until it thickens like 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 gently set with heat, giving it a smooth, rich body.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the richness of the egg yolks.
Anchovies
Contribute savory depth and umami to the sauce.
Ketchup
Adds sweetness and tomato flavor to the sauce base.

The step that matters

Thickening over gentle heat. Egg yolks scramble and curdle if they get too hot or are heated too quickly. Stirring constantly and keeping the heat gentle lets the yolks thicken the sauce smoothly.

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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