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To Stew Carp

A stew of carp simmered with wine, pickles, and spices, finished with a thickened gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

To Stew Carp

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Wash and dry the fish with a clean cloth.

  2. Dredge the fish with flour.

  3. Fry the fish in lard until light brown.

Stew

  1. Place the fish in a stew pan with water, red wine, lemon pickle, walnut catsup, mushroom powder, cayenne, onion, and horseradish.

  2. Cover the pan to keep in the steam and stew gently until the gravy reduces to cover the fish.

  3. Remove the fish and place them on a serving dish.

Finish and serve

  1. Thicken the gravy with flour and butter, boil briefly, and strain over the fish.

  2. Garnish with pickled mushrooms and scraped horseradish before serving.

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 + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Red wine + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together849 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Red wine + mushroomtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together720 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

  5. Walnut + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Carp
Firm fish that holds its shape through frying and gentle stewing.
Flour
Coats the fish for browning and thickens the gravy as it cooks.
Lard
Fries the floured fish, giving it a light brown crust and rich flavour.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth to the stewing liquid.
Butter
Enriches the gravy and adds body when mixed with the thickening flour.
Onion
Contributes savoury sweetness and aroma to the stewing liquid.

The step that matters

Stew gently with the pan covered. Gentle heat with a lid keeps the fish moist and tender while the gravy reduces. Rapid boiling would break the flesh apart and make the gravy cloudy and harsh.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, red wine, lemon, walnut, mushroom, pepper, clove):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, red wine, lemon, walnut, mushroom, pepper, clove. 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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