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To Stew Perch

A stew of perch cooked with salt, pepper, onion, wine, catsup, lemon pickle, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon 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 Perch

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stew

  1. Lay the perch in a deep pan with the heads on.

  2. Sprinkle salt, pepper, and chopped onion over each layer.

  3. Add enough water to fill the pan less than half full.

  4. Stir in the white wine, catsup, lemon pickle, and spices.

  5. Cover the pan and let it stew gently until done.

Serve

  1. Carefully remove the fish without breaking.

  2. Place the fish in a deep dish and pour the gravy over them.

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

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

  2. White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

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

  4. Onion + white winetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,535 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + white winetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,433 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

Perch
Is the main protein, cooked gently in the liquid until tender.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the stewing liquid.
Catsup
Adds sweetness and tomato-based acidity, giving the gravy body and color.
Chopped onion
Adds savory depth and aroma to the stew.

The step that matters

Let it stew gently until done. Gentle heat cooks the fish through while keeping its flesh intact. Vigorous boiling can break the fish apart and toughen the flesh.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, white wine, lemon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, white wine, lemon. 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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