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To Boil White Fish, Pike or Salmon

A whole fish stuffed with a bread and egg dressing, wrapped in a floured cloth, boiled, and served with an egg and butter sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Keokuk (Iowa). Westminster Presbyterian church · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 33% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 50,580 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

To Boil White Fish, Pike or Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Prepare a dressing with bread crumbs, chopped boiled eggs, pepper, salt and butter.

  2. Fill the body of the fish with the dressing.

  3. Bind the fish firmly with slips of cloth.

  4. Dredge a towel with flour and wrap the fish in it evenly so that it can be dished without breaking when unrolled.

Boil the fish

  1. Boil gently in an oblong kettle with a strainer until thoroughly cooked, the time depending on the size of the fish.

  2. Remove the fish to the platter and set it in the oven a few moments to dry.

Make the drawn butter

  1. Boil six eggs one hour.

  2. Work the yolks until they become a paste.

  3. Take a teacup nearly full of sweet butter and mix in a heaping tablespoonful of flour.

  4. Work in the yolks of the eggs, then stir in gently half a pint of boiling water.

  5. Add a little salt and pepper.

Garnish and serve

  1. Boil eggs hard, slice, and lay them on the platter around the fish.

  2. Just before serving, pour a little drawn butter over the fish.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

84Calories
6 gProtein
5 gFat
2 gCarbs

Counts 3 of 4 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 3 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Keokuk (Iowa). Westminster Presbyterian church. 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. See the original page.

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. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Egg and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 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

Eggs
Hard-boiled and mashed eggs bind the dressing, while the yolks thicken and enrich the butter sauce.

The step that matters

Boil gently. Vigorous boiling can break the fish apart and disturb the cloth-wrapped shape. A gentle simmer cooks the fish through while keeping it intact enough to dish whole.

“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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