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Creamed Fish in Shells

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and watercress match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 469 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Creamed Fish in Shells

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Steam the fish in hot water in the oven for 10 to 15 minutes.

  2. Arrange the fish pieces standing on end around a base of rice or hominy.

  3. Garnish the top with prawns, parsley, watercress, and a few pink roses or pink carnations.

  4. Serve with green or pink Hollandaise sauce.

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 + watercresstop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together469 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Rice + parsleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,762 recipes

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

  3. Rice + watercresstop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together59 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Fish + ricetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together270 recipes

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

  5. Watercress + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together295 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, rice, watercress, rose, sauce):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Turmericfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, rice, watercress, rose, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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