Name: Another Fish Sauce
Ingredients: ½ cup mushroom catsup; ½ cup walnut catsup; 12 anchovies, pounded; 2 cloves garlic; 1 teaspoon cayenne

Why it works: Mushroom and garlic are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,700 recipes. Both carry linalool, which smells floral, citrus. The science ↓

Another Fish Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

Combine mushroom ketchup, walnut ketchup, pounded anchovies, minced garlic, and cayenne in a saucepan.
Boil the mixture together.

Bottle and serve

Once cooled, bottle the sauce.
Shake well before using.

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.

Mushroom + garlictop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,700 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Walnut + clovetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,592 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,368 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Mushroom + clovetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,663 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Mushroom + walnuttop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together763 recipes

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