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French Anglers' Way of Stewing Fish

A stew of mixed fish with onions, wine, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

French Anglers' Way of Stewing Fish

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the fish into medium-sized pieces.

  2. In a stewpan, combine fish, salt, pepper, sugar, and sliced onions.

Stew

  1. Add wine and water, then set on the fire to stew, gently tossing occasionally.

  2. Check for tenderness by feeling the pieces with your finger.

Thicken and finish

  1. Mix flour with butter, adding bit by bit to the pan while shaking it gently.

  2. Boil for a few more minutes.

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. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Flour and butter 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

Fish
Forms the body of the stew and becomes tender as it simmers in the liquid.
Onions
Soften during stewing and add sweetness and body to the broth.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid so the stew has a light, smooth body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps the flour blend smoothly into the liquid.
Wine
Adds acidity and flavour to the stewing liquid.

The step that matters

Adding the flour and butter. Flour added directly to hot liquid clumps. Mixing it with butter first and adding it bit by bit while shaking the pan lets it disperse and thicken evenly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, pepper, sugar, wine, flour, butter):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, pepper, sugar, wine, flour, 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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