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Sauce

White Wine Sauce for Fish, Etc

A creamy white wine sauce for fish, made with fish stock, butter, flour, egg yolks, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and white wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,083 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

White Wine Sauce for Fish, Etc

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. If using for dressed fish, cook the fish in a mirepoix of sliced onion, parsley, and savory herbs with enough moisture.

  2. Strain the fish liquor and set aside for the sauce.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt 1 oz of butter in a saucepan, stir in the flour, and cook for a minute.

  2. Gradually dilute the mixture with the stock, fish liquor, and white wine, cooking for 15 minutes.

  3. Add the remaining butter bit by bit while continuously stirring, then add the egg yolks one at a time.

  4. Season with salt, white pepper, and a few drops of lemon juice.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain the sauce through a fine mesh or cloth and serve with dressed fish such as soles, salmon, trout, or whiting.

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 + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Lemon + white winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Fish + white winetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together370 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

Butter
Enriches the sauce with fat, giving it a smooth, rich mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the sauce when cooked with butter to form a roux.
Egg yolks
Emulsify and enrich the sauce, adding body and a creamy texture.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma, lifting the flavour of the sauce.
White stock
Provides the liquid base that carries the sauce's savoury flavour.
Fish liquor
Adds fish flavour and moisture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks. Egg yolks can scramble if the sauce is too hot. Add the butter gradually and keep stirring, so the yolks thicken the sauce smoothly and gently rather than curdling.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, flour, butter, lemon, white wine, egg):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, flour, butter, lemon, white wine, 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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