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Cream Sauce for Fish

A creamy sauce made by reducing water with herbs and spices, then adding cream and egg yolk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Cream Sauce for Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Combine cold water, parsley, salt, and peppercorns in a pot.

  2. Simmer until reduced to just under ¼ pint, skimming frequently.

  3. Add lemon peel or shallot for extra flavor.

  4. Strain the liquid.

Finish the sauce

  1. Add cream to make nearly ½ pint.

  2. Beat in the egg yolk.

  3. Remove from heat before boiling.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Lemon + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Parsley + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Lemon and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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

Egg yolk
Thickens the cream sauce as it gently heats, giving it a smooth, rich body.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the sauce a smooth, mellow texture.
Cold water
Forms the base liquid, which is reduced to concentrate the flavor.

The step that matters

Remove from heat before boiling. Egg yolk thickens at gentle heat but can scramble and curdle if the sauce boils, so the pan must come off the heat before it bubbles.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, lemon, cream, egg):

  1. Spinachfits about as well
  2. Shallotthe original
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, lemon, cream, 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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