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Boiled Fish

Boiled halibut served with a butter‑flour sauce, parsley, capers, and egg garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,550 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Boiled Fish

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the fish

  1. Roll the halibut in wet cheesecloth.

  2. Dredge the halibut lightly with flour.

  3. Place enough water in a kettle to cover the fish and bring it to a near boil.

  4. Add the fish on a rack in the kettle.

  5. Add vinegar, salt, and peppercorns.

  6. Cover the kettle.

  7. Once boiling, transfer the kettle to a cooker and cover it again.

Cook and make the sauce

  1. After 4 hours, remove the fish.

  2. Discard the skin.

  3. Drain the water.

  4. Melt butter in a saucepan.

  5. Whisk in flour and hot milk until boiling.

  6. Stir in parsley, capers, salt, pepper, and the chopped yolks of the eggs.

Serve

  1. Pour the hot sauce over the fish.

  2. Garnish with the egg whites.

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 + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,550 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Flour + caperstop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,024 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Halibut
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked gently in simmering liquid until flaky.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth, cohesive sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that gives the sauce a silky mouthfeel.
Hot milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens as it comes to a boil.
Hard-boiled eggs
Yolks thicken and enrich the sauce; whites add a mild, firm garnish.
Vinegar
Adds a light acidity to the poaching liquid, brightening the mild fish.

The step that matters

Bringing the sauce to a boil while whisking. Flour must be whisked smoothly into the butter and hot milk and brought to a boil so its starch cooks out and thickens the sauce. Stopping early leaves a thin sauce with a raw flour taste.

Swap the capers

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, vinegar, butter, flour, milk, parsley, pepper):

  1. Tarragonfits about as well
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Capersthe original
  4. Marjoramfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, vinegar, butter, flour, milk, parsley, pepper. 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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