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Sauce

Fish Sauce a LA Craster

A savory sauce made from anchovies, spices, sherry, and gravy, simmered with butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and basil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,768 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Fish Sauce a LA Craster

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan and whisk in the flour until browned.

  2. Add the anchovies, mace, cloves, black pepper, onions, herbs, parsley, and horse-radish.

  3. Pour in the sherry and strong gravy.

  4. Simmer gently until thickened, stirring occasionally.

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. Thyme + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + basiltop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,294 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Clove + basiltop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the butter into a roux that helps the sauce set and turn smooth.
Anchovies
Melt down into the liquid to add a deep, salty savoury backbone.
Strong gravy
Forms the main liquid of the sauce, carrying the savoury flavour.
Sherry
Adds acidity and a sweet, winey aroma to the sauce.
Butter
Provides fat and richness, and starts the roux with the flour.

The step that matters

Simmer gently until thickened. Gentle heat lets the flour starch swell and the sauce thicken evenly; a hard boil can scorch the roux and make the sauce catch on the pan.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, clove, pepper, onion, thyme, basil):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, clove, pepper, onion, thyme, basil. 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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