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How to Stew Fish

A stew of mackerel or cod simmered in fish and meat gravy with butter, anchovy, soy sauce, lemon, herbs, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and fennel match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 723 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

How to Stew Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gravy

  1. Open the mackerel by the back and remove the bones.

  2. In a stew pan, combine the bones, heads, and any other fish scraps to make ½ pint of fish gravy.

  3. Add ½ pint of meat gravy, butter, anchovy, soy sauce, lemon juice, fennel, parsley, pickled onions, cayenne, black pepper, and salt to the fish gravy.

Cook and serve

  1. Cut the fish into quarters if large, or split it in two if small, and roll it around a skewer.

  2. Place the fish in a saucepan, add a glass of port wine, and let it boil for 1-2 minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture through a sieve and pour it over the fish.

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. Lemon + fenneltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together723 recipes

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

  2. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Fish + anchovytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together637 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Flour + fenneltop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together455 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fish gravy
Provides the main savoury liquid base that carries the flavour of the whole dish.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the gravy.
Anchovy
Adds deep savoury umami flavour that enriches the gravy without tasting strongly fishy.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour while the mixture boils briefly.
Pickled onions
Add sharp acidity that balances the richness of the fish and gravy.

The step that matters

Boiling the port wine briefly. Boiling for only 1-2 minutes keeps the fish tender and the gravy flavourful. Longer boiling can toughen the fish and makes the sauce reduce and taste harsher, so timing matters.

Swap the fennel

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Fennelthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, meat, butter, flour, anchovy, sauce, lemon. 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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