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Sauce

Mock Oyster Sauce

A sauce made from beef gravy, anchovy sauce, mushroom ketchup, vinegar, white wine, egg yolks, pepper, mace, milk, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Mock Oyster Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, mix the beef gravy, anchovy sauce, mushroom ketchup, vinegar, and white wine.

  2. Add the beaten egg yolks, black pepper, and mace to the mixture and stir well.

  3. Gradually add the hot milk and stir in the butter until combined.

  4. Carefully bring the mixture to a boil, stirring continuously.

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. Sauce + ketchuptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Mushroom + white winetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

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 add richness as they set gently with heat.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the sauce.
Arrowroot or fine flour
Thickens the sauce so it becomes smooth and glossy when heated.
Beef gravy
Supplies the savoury, meaty base of the sauce.

The step that matters

Carefully bring the mixture to a boil, stirring continuously. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if overheated or left unstirred. Constant stirring spreads heat evenly, letting the yolks and starch thicken the sauce smoothly.

“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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