Name: Boiled Fish with Sauce
Ingredients: 2 pounds cod or halibut; Salt; 1 pint cream or milk; Salt to taste; Cayenne pepper to taste; 1 tablespoon chopped parsley; 2 teaspoons corn starch; Milk (for mixing with corn starch); Butter (if using milk instead of cream)

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Boiled Fish with Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the fish

Wash the fish and remove the skin.
Wrap the fish firmly in a cloth and place it in boiling salted water.
Boil gently for 30 minutes.
Remove the fish, drain, and place it on a platter.

Make the sauce

For the sauce, scald the cream or milk in a double boiler.
Season the cream with salt, cayenne, and chopped parsley.
Thicken the sauce with corn starch mixed with a little milk.
If using milk, add butter to the 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.

Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,955 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
Pepper + corntop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,324 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cod or halibut: Forms the main body of the dish, flaking into moist, tender pieces when poached.
Cream or milk: Forms the base of the sauce, giving it richness and a smooth, creamy body.
Corn starch: Thickens the scalded cream or milk into a smooth sauce that coats the fish.
Butter: Adds fat and richness to the sauce when milk is used instead of cream.

The step that matters

Thicken the sauce with corn starch mixed with a little milk. Corn starch must be mixed into a little cold milk first so it disperses evenly; added dry or to very hot liquid it clumps. Starch thickens as it heats, so the sauce needs to be stirred while it warms to become smooth.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, pepper, corn, milk, butter):

Nutmegfits better
Cinnamonfits about as well
Celeryfits about as well
Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, pepper, corn, milk, butter. 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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Boiled Fish with Sauce