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Boiled White Fish

A boiled white fish served with gravy, butter, pepper, and sliced hard‑boiled eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Fish and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,488 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Boiled White Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the fish

  1. Lay the fish open in a dripping pan with the back down.

  2. Nearly cover the fish with water and add 2 tablespoons of coarse sea salt.

  3. Cover lightly and simmer for 30 minutes without boiling.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. For the sauce, melt a piece of butter the size of an egg in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in 1 tablespoon of flour and cook for a minute.

  3. Add ½ pint of boiling water and boil for a few minutes.

  4. Stir in the sliced hard boiled eggs.

  5. Dress the fish with gravy, butter, and pepper, and garnish with sliced hard boiled eggs.

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 + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Fish + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,948 recipes

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

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Fish + eggtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,782 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

White fish
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked gently in simmering water until flaky.
Flour (in the method)
Thickens the butter and water into a smooth sauce when cooked briefly.
Hard boiled eggs
Add richness and a soft texture to the sauce and garnish.

The step that matters

Simmer without boiling. A gentle simmer cooks the fish evenly and keeps its flesh tender; a rolling boil toughens and breaks it apart.

“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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