Name: Sauce for Salmon
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon tomato conserve; 1 tablespoon fish stock; 1 tablespoon brown sauce; 1 tablespoon sherry; 1 tablespoon tarragon vinegar; 1 teaspoon essence of anchovies; 1 teaspoon French mustard; salt to taste

Why it works: Tarragon and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 901 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Sauce for Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Mix together the tomato conserve, fish stock, brown sauce, sherry, and tarragon vinegar, then add the essence of anchovies and French mustard.
Season with salt to taste.
Boil the mixture briefly and serve hot.

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.

Tarragon + mustardtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together901 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
Tomato + tarragontop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together391 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,547 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Tomato + mustardtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,482 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomato conserve: Provides concentrated tomato flavour, sweetness and body to the sauce.
Brown sauce: Adds deep, savoury, slightly sweet flavour and colour to the sauce.
Tarragon vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the richer ingredients.
Essence of anchovies: Adds concentrated savoury, salty depth that enhances the fish flavour.
French mustard: Adds sharp, pungent flavour and a little acidity to the sauce.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, sauce, sherry, tarragon, vinegar, mustard):

Horseradishfits better
Shallotfits better
Lettucefits better
Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, sauce, sherry, tarragon, vinegar, mustard. 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.