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Sauce

Fish Sauce

A sauce made from milk and fish stock, seasoned and finished with lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and fish are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,432 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Fish Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine milk and fish stock in a saucepan.

  2. Heat gently until warmed through.

  3. Add seasoning and a squeeze of lemon juice.

  4. Stir well and serve.

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. Milk + fishtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  2. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Fish + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,889 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Provides creaminess and a mild, rounded body to the sauce.
Fish stock or cooking liquid from stewed fish
Supplies the savoury fish flavour that defines the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds a bright acidity that lifts the richness of the milk.

The step that matters

Heating gently. Milk proteins can curdle or scorch if the sauce boils or is heated too fast, so warm it slowly until just heated through.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, fish):

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Vanillafits less well
  4. Applefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, fish. 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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