Why it works: Fish and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,036 recipes. Both carry acetoin, which smells butter, cream. The science ↓
Boiled Fish
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare and cook
Thoroughly wash and clean the fish in cold water.
Place it in a pan of boiling water with the vinegar and salt.
Boil gently for 15 to 20 minutes until the meat easily comes away from the bones.
Serve
Lift out with a slotted spoon and serve with butter sauce.
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.
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Fish + vinegartop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,036 recipes
Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Fish
- Is the main ingredient that is cooked until its flesh flakes away from the bones.
- Vinegar
- Adds a light acidity to the poaching water that brightens the flavour of the fish.
The step that matters
Boil gently rather than vigorously. A gentle simmer cooks the fish evenly and keeps the flesh tender and intact. A hard, rolling boil agitates the fish, toughens the proteins and can break the pieces 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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