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Filled Fish

A fish stuffed with bread, almonds, parsley, and spices, boiled and served with a milk and egg yolk sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

Filled Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Clean the fish thoroughly without cutting it open.

  2. Run your finger between the meat and skin, leaving the head attached to the skin.

  3. Remove the skin and take all the meat from the bones, ensuring no bones remain.

  4. Chop the fish meat finely and boil the chopped fish meat.

Make the stuffing

  1. Add the soaked bread, chopped almonds, parsley, pepper, ginger, salt, and grated onion to the fish meat.

  2. Mix in the eggs.

  3. Refill the fish skin with the mixture.

Poach and serve

  1. Prepare a fish kettle with boiling water, salt, vinegar, and chopped carrots.

  2. Carefully place the fish in the kettle.

  3. Boil for about 40 minutes.

  4. Combine 1 cup of milk and the yolks of 3 eggs with some of the boiling water to make the sauce.

  5. Season the sauce to taste.

  6. Serve the sauce cold.

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. Pepper + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  4. Ginger + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,595 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lake salmon or pike
Forms the main body of the dish, providing the flesh that is stuffed and poached.
Eggs
Bind the chopped fish and bread into a mixture that holds its shape when cooked.
Yolks of 3 eggs
Enrich the sauce and thicken it gently as it combines with the warm liquid.
Bread
Soaked bread adds moisture and softness to the stuffing, keeping it tender.
Milk
Adds richness and creaminess to the sauce, mellowing its flavour.

The step that matters

Combine the sauce with the boiling water gently. Egg yolks scramble if they meet very hot liquid too quickly. Adding some of the boiling water gradually to the milk and yolks keeps the sauce smooth and creamy rather than grainy.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, bread, parsley, pepper, ginger, onion, egg):

  1. Sesamefits better
  2. Chickpeafits better
  3. Peasfits better
  4. Almondthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, bread, parsley, pepper, ginger, onion, egg. 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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