Name: Fish Sauce
Ingredients: 2 tablespoons butter; finely cut pickle; 2 tablespoons salad dressing (prepared from 1 egg, oil, and mustard); 1 egg yolk; 1 teaspoon mustard; oil (as needed)

Why it works: Butter and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Fish Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Melt the butter until smooth.
Mix in the finely cut pickle.
In a separate bowl, combine the egg yolk, mustard, and oil until thick.
Add the salad dressing to the butter and pickle mixture, stirring well.

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.

Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Butter + mustardtop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,003 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Egg + mustardtop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,210 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).