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To Collop Halibut

Halibut cutlets fried and simmered in a broth of onions, celery, herbs, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

To Collop Halibut

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. In a pot, combine the bones, onions, celery, and sweet herbs; boil for 30 minutes to make broth.

  2. Strain the broth and thicken it with butter and flour.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the halibut cutlets until golden brown.

  2. Add the fried halibut to the broth and simmer for 30 minutes.

  3. Season with salt, pepper, nutmeg, mace, soy sauce, lemon juice, and lemon peel 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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  5. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Halibut
Forms the main body of the dish and firms slightly when fried and simmered.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory depth to the broth as they cook down.
Butter and flour
Thicken the strained broth into a smooth, lightly rich sauce.
Soy sauce or fish sauce
Adds savory, salty depth that rounds out the seasoning.

The step that matters

Frying the halibut cutlets until golden brown. Frying creates browned surfaces through the Maillard reaction, adding savory flavor. Fish is delicate and can break apart or dry out if overcooked, so browning should be done carefully before the cutlets simmer in the broth.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, celery, pepper, nutmeg, sauce, lemon, butter):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, celery, pepper, nutmeg, sauce, lemon, 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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