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Fish a LA Ckeme

A fish dish simmered in water, served with a lemon‑onion‑parsley sauce thickened with flour and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Fish and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,855 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk, wheat, fish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Poach the fish

  1. Rub the fish with coarse sea salt and place it in a kettle with enough boiling water to cover it.

  2. Once it boils, reduce the heat and let it simmer for 1 hour.

  3. Remove the fish and carefully take out all the bones.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, mix 1 ounce of flour with 1 quart of cream or new milk until smooth.

  2. Add the juice of 1 lemon, chopped onion, parsley, nutmeg, salt, and pepper.

  3. Cook the mixture over heat, stirring until it thickens.

  4. Stir in ¼ pound of butter and strain the sauce through a sieve.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Fish + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,855 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,036 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together34,118 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,039 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,062 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the cream into a smooth sauce as it cooks.
Cream or new milk
Forms the rich, moist base of the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, glossy finish.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the creamy sauce.

The step that matters

Cook the sauce until it thickens. Flour must be cooked with the liquid while stirring so it swells and sets the sauce smooth. Stirring keeps it from scorching or forming lumps, and the lemon juice may thin it slightly as it heats.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

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

  1. Carrotbetter flavor fit
  2. Potatobetter flavor fit
  3. Spinachbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, flour, cream, lemon, parsley, nutmeg, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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