Name: Fish Sauce
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon anchovy juice; 1 tablespoon soy sauce; 2 tablespoons mushroom ketchup; ¼ pound melted butter

Why it works: Sauce and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Fish Sauce

Ingredients

1 tablespoon anchovy juice
1 tablespoon soy sauce
2 tablespoons mushroom ketchup
¼ pound melted butter

Directions

In a bowl, mix the anchovy juice, soy sauce, and mushroom ketchup.
Stir in the melted butter until well combined.

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.

Sauce + ketchuptop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,099 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,057 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Anchovy + ketchuptop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together479 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Anchovy + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,697 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Anchovy juice: Adds a concentrated savoury, salty depth of flavour.
Soy sauce: Adds salty, savoury depth and helps round out the umami flavour.
Mushroom ketchup: Adds deep savoury, umami flavour and a rich, dark colour.
Melted butter: Adds richness and a smooth, fatty mouthfeel that carries the other flavours.

“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.