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Stewed Carp

A carp simmered in broth with herbs, claret, and Harvey sauce, finished with a thickened sauce and served with fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stewed Carp

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the fish

  1. Place the cleaned carp in a stew pan and cover with broth.

  2. Add sweet herbs and stew gently until cooked.

  3. Remove the fish and strain the broth.

Make the sauce

  1. Season the broth with pepper, coarse sea salt, claret, and Harvey sauce.

  2. Thicken the broth with brown thickening or flour mixed with water and add chopped parsley.

  3. Skim off any fat and pour the sauce over the fish.

Serve

  1. Serve with small pieces of fried bread and optional mushrooms.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,132 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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 and is cooked gently in the broth until tender.
Brown thickening or flour
Thickens the broth into a sauce that clings to the fish.
Claret
Adds acidity and wine flavour to the broth.
Harvey sauce
Adds savoury depth and tangy seasoning to the sauce.

The step that matters

Thicken the broth with flour mixed with water. Flour must be mixed smoothly with cold water before it goes into the hot broth, otherwise it clumps. Starch thickens the liquid as it heats, so the sauce should be simmered briefly to lose any raw floury taste and reach the intended body.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, pepper, sauce, flour, bread, mushroom):

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, pepper, sauce, flour, 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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