Skip to main content
Main

Stewed Rock

A stew of a whole fish with onions, herbs, and crabs or oysters, finished with catsup and port wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 2,225 recipes mention both. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk, wheat, tree nuts, fish, shellfish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Brown the sliced onions in flour and butter until dark and crisp, but not burnt.

  2. Place the browned onions in a fish kettle and lay the fish on its belly.

  3. Cover the fish with lard or butter to prevent the skin from breaking.

Cook

  1. Pour 4 cups of water over the fish, steeped with thyme and sweet marjoram.

  2. Cover and cook slowly for 2 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Just before serving, add the picked crabs (or oysters) and the walnut and mushroom catsup.

  2. Stir in the port wine and serve.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Butter + crabtop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together812 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Butter + fishtop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together4,432 recipes

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

  4. Onion + thymetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together11,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Fish + crabtop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together56 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Browning them in flour and butter builds a dark, crisp, savoury base that flavours the stew.
Butter
Browns the onions and adds richness and fat to the finished dish.
Lard
Forms a protective layer over the fish skin, helping it hold together during slow cooking.
Crabs
Provide the main shellfish flavour and tender meat added at the end.
Port wine
Adds sweetness, depth and aroma to the finished stew.

The step that matters

Browning the onions. Onions must reach dark and crisp without burning. Burnt flour and butter turn bitter and spoil the whole stew, while pale onions add little colour or flavour.

Flavor stand-ins for the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, flour, butter, fish, thyme, marjoram, crab):

  1. Beansbetter flavor fit
  2. Peasabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Walnutthe original
  4. Almondabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, flour, butter, fish, thyme, marjoram, crab. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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.

You might also like

Illustration of Fried FishIllustrationFried Fish120 recipesIllustration of Fish CroquettesIllustrationFish Croquettes81 recipesIllustration of Scalloped CodIllustrationScalloped Cod69 recipesIllustration of Broiled FishIllustrationBroiled Fish68 recipes