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Stewed Carp

A carp stewed with claret, onion, carrot, herbs, thickened with corn starch and served with fried bread and optional mushrooms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stewed Carp

Ingredients

Directions

Stew the carp

  1. Lay the cleaned carp in a stewpan.

  2. Add salt, claret, onion, carrot, and bouquet of herbs.

  3. Stew gently until the fish is cooked.

  4. Remove the fish and strain the liquid.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Mix corn-starch with a little water and add to the strained liquid.

  2. Season with pepper and boil for one minute.

  3. Pour the sauce over the fish and serve with fried bread sippets and mushrooms if desired.

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. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + corntop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together794 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Bread + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Carrot + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,796 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Carp
The main protein, gently cooked in the wine liquid until it becomes tender and flaky.
Claret
Adds acidity and wine flavour, and provides the moist cooking liquid that becomes the sauce.
Corn-starch
Thickens the strained liquid into a glossy sauce when it is heated and boiled.
Onion
Contributes savoury aromatic flavour to the cooking liquid as it stews.
Carrot
Adds subtle sweetness and aromatic depth to the stewing liquid.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce with corn-starch. Corn-starch must be mixed with water first so it does not clump, then boiled so the starch granules swell and thicken the sauce fully.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, corn, pepper, bread, mushroom):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, corn, pepper, bread, mushroom. 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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