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Sauce for Boiled Fish

A sauce made from egg yolks, mustard, capers, parsley, and vinegar for boiled fish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 624 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Sauce for Boiled Fish

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, combine the egg yolks and mixed mustard.

  2. Add the capers, chopped parsley, and vinegar.

  3. Mix well until all ingredients are combined.

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. Mustard + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together624 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Capers + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,550 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mustard + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Parsley + vinegartop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,477 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

Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the sauce into a smooth, thick emulsion.
Mixed mustard
Acts as an emulsifier that helps hold the oil-free sauce together and adds sharpness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the richness of the yolks.
Capers
Contribute briny, tangy flavour that cuts through the richness of the sauce.
Parsley
Adds fresh, herbal aroma and a clean green flavour.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, mustard, capers, vinegar):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Turmericfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, mustard, capers, vinegar. 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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