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Economical Fish Stew for Working Man’s Family

A hearty fish stew made with hake, ling, skate, or haddock, fish trimmings, onions, lard, herbs, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Economical Fish Stew for Working Man’s Family

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Remove the fish from the bones and set aside the bones and any head portions.

  2. In a saucepan, heat the lard and fry the sliced onions until brown.

  3. Add the water, pounded bones, trimmings, herbs, pepper, and salt. Simmer for 3 hours.

Finish the stew

  1. Strain out the bones and skin, then add the fish pieces and boil gently for 10 to 15 minutes.

  2. Thicken the stew with flour mixed smoothly with a small portion of stock before finishing.

  3. For a complete dish, add boiled small suet dumplings to the tureen.

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

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

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Haddock + fishtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together257 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Provides the main body of the stew and flavor carried into the broth.
Lard
Fat for frying the onions, adding richness and carrying flavor through the stew.
Onions
Browning in the fat builds sweetness and savory depth in the base.
Flour
Starch that thickens the stock and gives the stew a smooth body.

The step that matters

Thickening the stew with flour. Flour added directly to hot liquid forms lumps, so it must be mixed smoothly with a little stock first. Starch thickens as the liquid simmers, so the stew should be thickened before finishing and not boiled hard afterward.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (haddock, fish, parsley, pepper, flour):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, fish, parsley, pepper, flour. 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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