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Perch, with Caper Sauce

A fried perch served with a buttery caper sauce containing chives, parsley, and mushrooms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Chive and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 245 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Perch, with Caper Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Scale, wash, and dry the perch.

  2. Cut deep slits into the sides and back of the fish.

  3. Dredge the perch with flour mixed with a little salt.

Fry and make the sauce

  1. Fry the perch until thoroughly cooked and perfectly brown.

  2. In a saucepan, melt the butter and add some flour to brown it.

  3. Stir in the chopped chives, parsley, and shredded mushrooms.

  4. Add a little boiling water to the sauce.

Combine and serve

  1. Place the fried perch in a small stewpan and pour the sauce over them.

  2. Let the perch simmer in the sauce for 2-3 minutes.

  3. Transfer the perch to a warm dish and add the capers to the sauce.

  4. Thicken the sauce and pour it over the perch before serving.

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. Chive + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together245 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Parsley + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,550 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Chive + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Flour + caperstop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,024 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

What each ingredient does

Perch
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked through and browned by frying.
Flour
Dusts the fish for a browned crust and helps thicken the sauce when browned in butter.
Butter
Carries the browning of the flour and adds richness to the sauce.
Mushrooms
Adds earthy flavour and body to the sauce.
Capers
Add a sharp, acidic bite that cuts through the rich butter sauce.

The step that matters

Frying the perch until thoroughly cooked and perfectly brown. The fish must be cooked through for food safety and to set the flesh, while the surface needs enough heat to brown properly. Pat the fish dry first so moisture does not steam the crust instead of browning it.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, chive, mushroom, capers):

  1. Tarragonfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Garlicfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, chive, mushroom, capers. 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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