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HolldndiscJie Fisch Saxice — Dutch Fish Sauce

A Dutch fish sauce made by simmering fish broth with butter, egg yolks, tarragon vinegar, lemon juice, salt, and white pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,137 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

HolldndiscJie Fisch Saxice — Dutch Fish Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a casserole, combine fish broth and butter.

  2. Add egg yolks, tarragon vinegar, lemon juice, salt, and white pepper.

  3. Stir constantly until the mixture boils.

  4. Remove from heat and stir for a few seconds.

Serve

  1. Pour over hot fish or serve in a sauce tureen.

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. Tarragon + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

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

  2. Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Tarragon + white peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together139 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Fish + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,889 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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 with gentle heat.
Butter
Adds fat for a silky texture and rich flavour.
Fish broth
Forms the liquid base that carries the other ingredients.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds sharp acidity and a faint aniseed aroma.

The step that matters

Stir constantly until the mixture boils. Egg yolks thicken when heated, but they can scramble if the heat is uneven or they sit still. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly so the sauce becomes smooth and thick rather than grainy.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, egg, tarragon, vinegar, lemon. 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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