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Aspic De Goujons Perches

A chilled aspic made from perch fillets, sturgeon broth, clarified with egg white, served with croutons and horseradish sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Chervil and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 824 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Aspic De Goujons Perches

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the fish

  1. Cook the perch fillets in salted water for a moment, then drain and pat dry.

  2. Marinate the fillets for 1 hour in olive oil and lemon juice.

Make the aspic

  1. Combine the cooked perch with 3-4 times the amount of sturgeon broth.

  2. Clarify the mixture with the egg white as you would for meat jelly.

  3. Place a round or oval mold on ice and pour in a little jelly.

  4. Decorate with chervil, tarragon, and crayfish tails.

  5. Arrange the perch fillets in the mold, fill it with the jelly, and let it cool completely.

Serve

  1. When ready to serve, unmold onto a dark silver platter, garnish with croutons, and serve with grated horseradish sauce.

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. Chervil + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together824 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Lemon + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Chervil + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together20 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Lemon + cherviltop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together358 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Tarragon + horseradishtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together73 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Perch fillets
Form the main body of the aspic and provide the delicate flesh set in the jelly.
Sturgeon broth
Supplies the liquid that becomes the savoury jelly once chilled and set.
Egg white
Collects particles as it clarifies the broth, leaving the jelly clear and bright.
Olive oil
Adds moisture and carries flavour into the fish during the marinating step.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the fish and balances the rich jelly.

The step that matters

Clarify the mixture with the egg white. Egg white proteins coagulate as they heat, trapping cloudy particles so they rise and can be removed. Skipping or rushing this leaves the jelly murky, and the aspic loses its clarity.

Swap the horseradish

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (olive, lemon, sturgeon, egg, chervil, tarragon, crayfish):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Horseradishthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, lemon, sturgeon, egg, chervil, tarragon, crayfish. 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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