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French Fish Stew

A stew of half a whole fish simmered in a sauce of onion, lard, flour, wine, and Madeira, garnished with lemon, parsley, and celery.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

French Fish Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy

  1. Heat lard in a good-sized stewpan until hot.

  2. Add the chopped onion and fry until brown.

  3. Dust in the flour and cook until browned.

  4. Pour in the boiling water and season with salt, black pepper, red pepper, and garlic.

Cook the fish

  1. Add the fish to the stewpan, ensuring it is covered with gravy.

  2. Cover and let it simmer slowly until the fish is nearly done.

  3. Add the claret wine and Madeira without stirring; just shake to mix.

  4. Simmer for a few more minutes until ready to serve.

Serve

  1. Carefully remove the fish and place it on a dish.

  2. Pour the gravy over the fish and garnish with lemon slices, parsley, and celery.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  5. Garlic + parsleytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 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

Flour
Browned with the onion and lard, it thickens the boiling water into a gravy.
Lard
Fat for frying the onion and flour, carrying flavour and helping them brown.
Onion
Frying it until brown builds a savoury, sweet base for the gravy.
Claret wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the gravy.
Madeira
Adds sweetness and rich, fortified wine flavour to the gravy.
Fish
The main protein, which cooks gently in the gravy until nearly done.

The step that matters

Adding the wines without stirring. Stirring would break up the fish as it finishes cooking, so the wines are only shaken in to mix. Gentle handling keeps the fish pieces intact and the gravy clear.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, pepper, garlic, fish, wine, lemon, parsley. 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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