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Sauce

Another Mock Oyster Sauce

A sauce made with flour, butter, milk, gravy, anchovy essence, nutmeg, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Another Mock Oyster Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, mix the flour and butter over low heat until combined.

  2. Add the milk, gravy, anchovy essence, nutmeg, and pepper.

  3. Stir the mixture continuously until it comes to a boil.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the butter and liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps the flour blend smoothly.
Milk
Adds liquid and creaminess to the body of the sauce.
Gravy
Provides savoury depth and meaty flavour to the sauce.
Anchovy essence
Supplies a concentrated salty, umami note that mimics oyster sauce.

The step that matters

Stir continuously until it boils. Flour thickens only when heated with liquid and stirred, so constant stirring prevents lumps and scorching on the base of the pan while the starch hydrates and the sauce thickens evenly.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, milk, anchovy, pepper):

  1. Parsleyfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, milk, anchovy, 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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