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Sauce

Oyster Sauce for Fish

A sauce made from oysters, butter, flour, and seasonings for fish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Anchovy and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 479 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Oyster Sauce for Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Blanch the oysters, strain them, and reserve their liquor.

  2. Remove the gills from the oysters, drain, and place them in a stewpan.

Make the sauce

  1. Add fresh butter and the strained oyster liquor.

  2. Mix in flour and water to thicken the sauce.

  3. Season with lemon juice, anchovy liquor, cayenne pepper, ketchup (if using), and lemon peel.

  4. Bring to a boil, skim off any foam, and let it simmer for five minutes.

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. Anchovy + ketchuptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together479 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Oyster + anchovytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together603 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

Oysters
Provide the main flavour and texture of the sauce as they cook through.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it heats with the liquid.
Oyster liquor
Supplies the briny, savoury base that gives the sauce its character.
Anchovy liquor
Adds deep savoury, salty umami notes to the sauce.

The step that matters

Bring to a boil, skim off any foam, and simmer. Flour needs to be heated fully to thicken the sauce and lose its raw taste. Skimming removes foam that would cloud the sauce, and a gentle simmer keeps the oysters tender rather than tough.

“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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