Remouladesaus (Dutch Fish-Stall Remoulade)

At a Dutch fish stall, the sauce tells you where you are before the fish does. The paper tray of kibbeling, battered white fish cut into hot little pieces, is only half the transaction. The other half is the cold spoonful in the corner: pale, sharp, freckled with augurk (gherkin) and caper, waiting to make the fryer behave itself.

But let me tell you a secret. Remouladesaus wears a French name, but at the viskraam (fish stall) it speaks excellent Dutch. The old French remoulade carried mustard, vinegar, herbs, capers, and the bite of pungent roots before mayonnaise softened the whole business into something more sociable. The Dutch version kept the useful part: acid, salt, and mustard to cut through fried fish so the cod, haddock, or whiting tastes of the quay rather than merely of batter.

There is no grandeur here, for obvious reasons. You chop, you stir, you wait half an hour. Hou het altijd simpel, always keep it simple. The only real rule is this: keep texture in the sauce. Chop the pickle and capers finely, but don't turn them to paste, because the little crunch against the fish is the point. A dish without its story is half a meal, and sometimes the story fits in a bowl small enough to pass across the table.