Freddy's Fry Sauce

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Fry sauce is mayonnaise and ketchup, and the entire recipe is the ratio. Get it wrong and you have not made a slightly worse fry sauce — you have made ketchup with mayonnaise in it, which is a different and worse condiment.

Four parts mayonnaise to one part ketchup. Not half and half.

The mayonnaise is the base and the ketchup is a seasoning within it. At 50/50 the tomato takes over, the sauce goes thin and orange, and the sweetness dominates.

The colour test

Pale salmon pink. If it is orange, there is too much ketchup.

This is a reliable check that takes no tasting, and it is worth using because people consistently over-pour the ketchup.

What lifts it above the ratio

Two ingredients that are not obvious and both make a real difference:

Pickle brine. A teaspoon straight from the jar. It brings acid and salt in a form that tastes right for this — sharper than vinegar alone, and it is where a lot of American burger-shop sauces get their edge.

Smoked paprika. A quarter teaspoon. Below the level where you taste paprika, enough to add a savoury depth that the two base ingredients do not have.

The hour in the fridge

Whisked and served immediately, it tastes like mayonnaise then ketchup. Rested, the garlic and onion powder hydrate and the sauce becomes a single flavour.

An hour minimum. It keeps a week, so make it the day before.

What you need

• 200 ml mayonnaise
• 50 ml tomato ketchup
• 1 tsp pickle brine
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp onion powder
• 1/4 tsp smoked paprika
• 1/4 tsp black pepper
• a pinch of cayenne (optional)

Method

1. Whisk everything together until evenly pale pink.
2. Refrigerate at least 1 hour.
3. Taste and adjust — usually a little salt.

Full-fat mayonnaise

Light mayonnaise is thickened with gums instead of fat, and once thinned with ketchup it turns slippery. There is no way around this in a sauce with two ingredients.

Getting it thicker or thinner

Thicker, for dipping: less ketchup, or a tablespoon of sour cream.

Thinner, as a burger sauce: a teaspoon of pickle brine at a time, not water.

Storing

A week in the fridge in a sealed jar. It thickens slightly on the first day as the powders take up moisture.

Do not freeze. Mayonnaise splits.