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Sauce

Cream Sauce for Fish

A creamy sauce made with butter, flour, cream, anchovy essence, and chili vinegar or lemon juice, served over fish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cream Sauce for Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a clean saucepan, knead together the butter and flour with a strong knife until smooth.

  2. Place the saucepan over gentle heat until the butter is dissolved.

  3. Add the salt and cayenne, and simmer for one minute.

  4. Gradually stir in the cream and keep stirring until the sauce boils.

  5. Mix in the essence of anchovies and chili vinegar or lemon juice.

Finish

  1. If too thick, thin the sauce with a few spoons of milk.

  2. For a variation, add diced shelled shrimps or lobsters.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Butter
Melts with the flour to form a smooth base that carries the sauce's richness.
Flour
Thickens the butter and cream into a smooth sauce that holds together.
Cream
Adds body and richness, and thickens as it heats with the roux.
Essence of anchovies
Adds a salty, savoury depth that gives the sauce its fish flavour.
Chili vinegar or lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and cream.

The step that matters

Stirring in the cream. Adding cream gradually while stirring keeps the flour-butter base smooth, so lumps do not form. Keep stirring until the sauce boils, because the starch in the flour must heat fully to thicken the sauce properly.

“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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