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Italian Fish

A tomato-based fish stew with onions and sweet oil, seasoned with salt, pepper, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Italian Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato base

  1. Stew the tomatoes for 1 hour.

  2. Season the tomatoes with salt and pepper.

  3. If the tomatoes are too acidic, add 3 lumps of sugar.

  4. Slice the onions.

  5. Fry the sliced onions in the sweet oil.

Cook the stew

  1. Cut the fish into square pieces.

  2. Place the fish pieces in a saucepan with the fried onions and oil.

  3. Strain the stewed tomatoes over the fish in the saucepan.

  4. Cover the saucepan and stew for 1 hour or more.

  5. The fish should look red on the outside.

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. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + sugartop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,401 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + sugartop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,667 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Pepper and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,401 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Bass
Forms the main body of the stew, becoming tender as it simmers slowly in the sauce.
Tomatoes
Provide the liquid base, acidity, and red colour that flavours the whole stew.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth when fried gently in oil before the stew is assembled.
Sweet oil
Carries flavour from the fried onions and helps brown the onions for a richer base.

The step that matters

Stew the fish until cooked through. Fish is delicate and can turn dry or fall apart if overcooked, while undercooked fish is unsafe. Covered, gentle simmering cooks it evenly while keeping it moist.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, pepper, sugar):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, sugar. 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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