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Baked Carp

A whole carp stuffed, coated in breadcrumbs, baked with stock, onions, herbs, port wine, anchovies, and a savory gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 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 ↓

Baked Carp

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the carp

  1. Clean the carp.

  2. Stuff it with the stuffing for soles.

  3. Sew it up.

  4. Brush the outside with egg yolk.

  5. Cover with bread crumbs.

  6. Baste with oiled butter.

Bake

  1. Place the carp in a deep dish.

  2. Add stock, onions, bay leaves, herbs, port wine, and anchovies.

  3. Cover and bake for 1 hour at 350°F (175°C).

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Remove the fish and keep it warm.

  2. Pour the cooking liquid into a saucepan.

  3. Mix the liquid with flour, butter, mustard, cayenne, and soy sauce.

  4. Bring to a boil to thicken.

  5. Serve the fish garnished with lemon, parsley, and horse-radish.

  6. Pour the gravy into a sauceboat.

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. Basil + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  3. Basil + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Carp
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked whole and kept moist under its coating.
Egg yolk
Brushed on the outside to help the bread crumbs adhere and brown in the oven.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp coating that browns during baking.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a gravy when it is brought to a boil.
Port wine
Adds depth and sweetness to the cooking liquid that becomes the gravy.
Anchovies
Dissolve into the cooking liquid, adding savoury depth to the gravy.

The step that matters

Bringing the gravy to a boil to thicken. Flour thickens only when its starch granules are heated enough to swell and gelatinise. Stirring while it heats prevents lumps, and the gravy must be fully brought to a boil for the flour to reach full thickening.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, bread, butter, fish, basil, thyme, parsley):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, bread, butter, fish, basil, thyme, 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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