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Sauce

Liver Sauce for Fish

A sauce made by boiling fish liver, pounding with flour, and simmering in broth or butter with parsley, cayenne, anchovy essence, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Liver Sauce for Fish

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the liver of the fish.

  2. Pound the liver in a mortar with a little flour.

  3. Stir the mixture into some broth, liquor from the boiled fish, or melted butter.

  4. Add parsley, Cayenne, and essence of anchovy, soy, or ketchup.

  5. Bring to a boil and rub through a sieve.

  6. Optionally, add lemon juice or diced lemon.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Fish + anchovytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together637 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Liver + anchovytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together199 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  5. Parsley + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,702 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

Liver of the fish
Forms the body of the sauce, giving it a rich, smooth texture when pounded and sieved.
Flour
Thickens the pounded liver so the sauce holds together and coats food.
Broth or melted butter
Adds moisture and fat, loosening the mixture into a pourable sauce.
Essence of anchovy, soy, or ketchup
Adds savoury depth and salt-like seasoning to the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich flavour of the liver.

The step that matters

Rub through a sieve after boiling. Pounding and sieving breaks the liver into fine particles, which gives a smooth sauce without lumps. Skipping the sieve leaves a grainy texture, and boiling after thickening must be gentle so the flour does not clump.

“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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