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To Dress Any Kind of Salted Fish

A method of dressing salted fish with garlic, herbs, butter, and wine, simmered to create a savory gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

To Dress Any Kind of Salted Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the salted fish in fresh water overnight.

  2. Place the fish on a perforated tin plate and set it in a fish kettle.

Make the gravy

  1. Sprinkle pounded cloves and black pepper over the fish.

  2. Add garlic, sweet herbs, parsley, tarragon, vinegar, and wine.

  3. Roll the butter in flour, cut it into small pieces, and place it over the fish.

  4. Cover the kettle and simmer over low heat for 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Carefully remove the fish and place it in a serving dish.

  2. Keep the dish over hot water and cover it until the gravy boils.

  3. Remove the garlic and herbs, pour the gravy over the fish, and serve.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Thyme + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together528 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  5. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Salted fish
Forms the main body of the dish; soaking first reduces its saltiness.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that enriches the gravy and gives it a smooth mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the butter and the cooking liquid into a gravy as it melts and heats.
Wine
Provides liquid and acidity that help build the flavour of the gravy.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that brightens the gravy and balances the rich butter.

The step that matters

Simmer gently with the kettle covered. Low, covered heat cooks the fish through gently and lets the butter and flour thicken the liquid into a gravy without breaking or boiling away too fast.

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, clove, pepper, thyme, parsley, tarragon, vinegar):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Fennelfits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, clove, pepper, thyme, parsley, tarragon, vinegar. 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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