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Sauce

Dutch Sauce for Fish

A vinegar-based sauce with horseradish, egg yolks, butter, flour, and water, used for fish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Horseradish and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 743 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Dutch Sauce for Fish

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil vinegar and horseradish in a porcelain saucepan for 5 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture.

  3. Let it cool.

  4. Add egg yolks, butter, flour, water, and salt to the cooled mixture.

  5. Stir over gentle heat with a wooden spoon until it almost boils.

  6. Serve immediately to prevent curdling.

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. Horseradish + flourtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together743 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Vinegar + horseradishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce and give it a rich, smooth body as they set gently with heat.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel that carries the sharp vinegar flavour.
Flour
Stabilises the emulsion and helps the sauce hold its thickness without breaking.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that defines the sauce and balances the richness of the yolks and butter.
Horseradish
Contributes a pungent, sharp aroma and heat that flavours the vinegar.

The step that matters

Stir over gentle heat until it almost boils. Egg yolks thicken at low temperatures, but too much heat scrambles them and the emulsion curdles. Keep the heat gentle and stir constantly, then serve right away as the record advises.

Swap the horseradish

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, egg, butter, flour):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Horseradishthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, egg, butter, flour. 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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