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Sauce

A Fish Sauce Without Butter

A savory sauce made from anchovies, onion, horseradish, and spices, thickened with egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove 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 ↓

A Fish Sauce Without Butter

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine water, vinegar, onion, horseradish, pepper, cloves, and anchovies in a small saucepan.

  2. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat.

  3. Stir in the beaten egg yolks and cook until thickened to the consistency of melted butter.

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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Onion + horseradishtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Horseradish + clovetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Horseradish + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,646 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they cook, giving it a smooth, buttery body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the sauce and balances the richness of the yolks.
Anchovies
Contribute salty, savory depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Cooking the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat. If the sauce boils too hard after the yolks go in, they can scramble and curdle, so keep the heat low and stir steadily until it thickens.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, horseradish, pepper, clove, egg):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, horseradish, pepper, clove, 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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