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Melted Butter, for Fish

A butter-based sauce for fish flavored with anchovy essence, mushroom catsup, cayenne pepper, chili vinegar, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Melted Butter, for Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan until it is thick enough to adhere to the fish.

  2. Dilute the melted butter with a small amount of Essence of Anchovy, Mushroom Catsup, Cayenne pepper, or Chili Vinegar to taste.

  3. Add lemon juice to the mixture for flavor.

Serve

  1. Serve the sauce warm over cooked fish.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

  4. Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Forms the rich base of the sauce and coats the fish with a smooth, thick layer.
Essence of anchovy
Adds a salty, savory depth to the butter.
Mushroom catsup
Contributes a deep, savory, umami flavor to the sauce.
Chili vinegar
Adds sharpness and acidity that cuts through the richness of the butter.
Lemon juice
Adds bright acidity that lifts and balances the buttery flavor.

The step that matters

Melting the butter to the right thickness. Butter that is too hot or left too long separates into fat and milk solids, so the sauce turns greasy and thin instead of clinging to the fish. Melt it gently and stop once it is thick enough to coat.

“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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