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Stewed Trout

A stew of trout with onion, herbs, stock, port wine, thickened with butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Stewed Trout

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the fish thoroughly and dry it completely.

  2. Place the fish in a stewpan with all ingredients except butter and flour.

Stew and thicken

  1. Simmer gently for about 1 hour, or until the fish is cooked through.

  2. Remove the fish and strain the gravy.

  3. Add the butter and flour to the gravy and stir over high heat for 5 minutes.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the trout and serve.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  5. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Trout
Forms the main body of the dish and cooks gently in the stock and wine.
Stock
Provides the liquid that gently cooks the fish and becomes the base of the gravy.
Port wine
Adds depth and a mild sweetness to the gravy.
Butter and flour
Thicken the strained gravy into a sauce with body and smooth richness.
Onion
Adds savoury aroma and sweetness as it softens in the liquid.

The step that matters

Thickening the gravy with butter and flour. Stirring the butter and flour over high heat for the full 5 minutes cooks out the raw flour taste and lets the starch swell to thicken the sauce. Stopping early leaves a pasty or floury flavour.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, parsley, clove, thyme, pepper, port wine, butter):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, parsley, clove, thyme, pepper, port wine, 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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