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Steamed White Fish

A whole white fish is steamed and served with tartar sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Fish and cheese work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 135 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Steamed White Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the fish thoroughly, removing all scales.

  2. Wrap the fish in cheese cloth and tie it securely.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam the fish until it separates from the bone.

  2. Serve with sauce Tartare.

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. Fish + cheesetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together135 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Cheese + saucetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,987 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Fish + saucetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,487 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

White fish
Provides the main protein, which turns flaky and opaque as it cooks.
Sauce tartare
Adds a tangy, creamy contrast to the mild, delicate steamed fish.

The step that matters

Steam the fish until it separates from the bone. Fish is cooked when its flesh turns opaque and flakes easily. Pulling apart before that point leaves it translucent and rubbery, while overcooking dries it out. Checking the flesh near the bone helps you judge doneness.

“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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