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Sauce

Fish Sauce Without Butter

A fish sauce made by simmering vinegar, water, onion, horseradish, cloves, mace, pepper, anchovies, ketchup, and egg yolks until thickened.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Horse and radish work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 529 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyraldehyde, which smells malty, chocolate. The science ↓

Fish Sauce Without Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Simmer vinegar and water gently with onion, horseradish, cloves, mace, and black pepper until the onion is tender.

  2. Chop the onion small with the anchovies and boil the mixture for a few minutes with ketchup.

Thicken the sauce

  1. Beat the egg yolks well and strain them.

  2. Gradually mix the hot liquid with the egg yolks, stirring constantly.

  3. Place the saucepan over gentle heat, tossing the sauce back and forth to prevent curdling.

  4. Heat until the sauce thickens 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. Horse + radishtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together529 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Vinegar + radishtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together508 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Radish + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together196 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Proteins set as they heat, thickening the sauce to a smooth, pourable body.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that brightens the sauce and balances its richness.
Anchovies
Contribute savoury, salty depth that rounds out the sauce's flavour.

The step that matters

Gradually mixing the hot liquid into the egg yolks. Egg yolk proteins set and curdle if they meet too much heat too quickly. Adding the hot liquid slowly while stirring constantly gently raises the yolks' temperature, and keeping the pan over gentle heat and tossing the sauce prevents curdling and keeps it smooth.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, onion, horse, radish, clove, pepper, ketchup):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, onion, horse, radish, clove, pepper, ketchup. 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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