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Sauce

Another Fish Sauce

A spicy anchovy-based sauce made with mushroom and walnut ketchup, garlic, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Another Fish Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Combine mushroom ketchup, walnut ketchup, pounded anchovies, minced garlic, and cayenne pepper in a saucepan.

  2. Boil the mixture together.

  3. Allow it to cool, then bottle it.

Serve

  1. Shake well before using.

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. Mushroom + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,700 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Garlic + peppertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Walnut + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Anchovies
Provide a concentrated salty, savory umami base that defines the sauce's flavor.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds deep savory, umami richness and liquid to the sauce.
Walnut ketchup
Contributes additional savory depth and liquid body to the sauce.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma and sharp savory flavor.
Cayenne pepper
Provides heat that gives the sauce a spicy kick.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, ketchup, clove, garlic, pepper):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Chickpeafits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, ketchup, clove, garlic, 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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