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How to Stew Fish

A stew of a whole fish cooked with flour, butter, gravy, wine, soy sauce, lemon pickle, pickled mushrooms, herbs, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

How to Stew Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and fry

  1. Clean the fish thoroughly and remove all fins.

  2. Dredge the fish in flour.

  3. In a skillet, heat the butter over medium-high heat and fry the fish until it is three-quarters cooked.

Make the stew

  1. Transfer the fish to a stew pan.

  2. Add meat gravy, water, red wine, soy sauce, lemon pickle, pickled mushrooms, lemon slices, and sweet herbs.

  3. Season with cayenne, black pepper, nutmeg, and mace.

  4. Place the stew pan over low heat and simmer without boiling.

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

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

  2. Red wine + mushroomtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together720 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Fish + meattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together479 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Main protein that cooks gently in the simmering liquid until flaky and tender.
Flour
Coats the fish so its surface browns and holds together in the stew.
Butter
Frying fat that browns the fish and adds richness.
Meat gravy
Adds savoury depth and body to the stew liquid.
Red wine
Adds acidity and deep flavour that balances the rich sauce.
Lemon pickle
Adds sharp, tangy acidity that brightens the stew.

The step that matters

Simmering without boiling. At a rapid boil the liquid agitates and the proteins in the fish tighten and toughen, so the flesh breaks apart and turns dry. Gentle heat cooks it evenly while keeping it moist and intact.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, flour, butter, meat, red wine, sauce, mushroom):

  1. Plumfits about as well
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Applefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, flour, butter, meat, red wine, sauce, mushroom. 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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