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Excellent Fish Sauce

A sauce made from parsley, egg yolks, cayenne pepper, salt, vinegar, olive oil, and gherkins, served with boiled or broiled fish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Excellent Fish Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Pound the chopped parsley in a bowl until it becomes a pulp.

  2. Add the egg yolks and mix thoroughly.

  3. Season with cayenne pepper and salt.

  4. Thin the mixture with vinegar.

  5. Gradually mix in the olive oil.

  6. Stir in the chopped gherkins.

Serve

  1. Serve with boiled or broiled 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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,649 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Vinegar + olivetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  4. Pepper + olivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  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

Egg yolks
Emulsify the oil into the sauce, giving it a thick, creamy body.
Olive oil
Provides fat that, emulsified with the yolks, gives the sauce its rich texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich yolk and oil and thins the mixture.
Parsley
Adds fresh, herbal aroma and color to the sauce.
Gherkins
Add tart, crunchy bits that contrast with the smooth sauce.

The step that matters

Gradually mix in the olive oil.. Adding oil slowly to the yolks lets them emulsify it into a stable sauce. Pouring too fast can cause the sauce to split and turn greasy.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Tarragonfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Dillfits about as well
  4. Garlicfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, vinegar, olive. 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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