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Fish Gravy

A gravy made from fish frying fat, butter, flour, boiling water, and optional vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Fish and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,488 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Fish Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the roux

  1. Remove some fat from the fried fish.

  2. Add butter to the remaining fat.

  3. Sprinkle flour into the hot fat and stir well.

Finish the gravy

  1. Pour in boiling water and stir as it boils for about a minute.

  2. Add vinegar for extra flavor, if desired.

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. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + vinegartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  4. Fish + vinegartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,036 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  5. Flour + vinegartop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,652 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Fat from frying fish
Carries the fried flavor and gives the gravy its savory base.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as its starch absorbs liquid and swells when heated.
Boiling water
Forms the liquid body of the gravy and hydrates the flour starch.
Vinegar
Adds a bright acidity that lifts and balances the rich fat flavor.

The step that matters

Pour in boiling water and stir as it boils for about a minute.. Stirring keeps the flour evenly dispersed so lumps do not form. Boiling for a minute gelatinizes the flour starch fully, which thickens the gravy and removes the raw flour taste.

“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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