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Boiled Ray with Piquante Sauce

A boiled ray served with a piquant sauce of vinegar, herbs, capers, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 27,047 recipes mention both. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Boiled Ray with Piquante Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the fish

  1. Clean and wash the fish.

  2. Place the fish in a pot with enough cold water to cover it.

  3. Add 2 tablespoons coarse sea salt, 1 sliced lemon, 1 peeled onion with 10 cloves, a bouquet of herbs, and ⅓ cup vinegar to the pot.

  4. Bring the water to a boil, then reduce to a gentle boil for 15 minutes.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. While the fish cooks, chop 1 tablespoon each of pickle, capers, and onion.

  2. Heat the chopped ingredients in a saucepan with ⅓ cup vinegar until the vinegar evaporates.

  3. Add 2 oz butter, 1 oz flour, 1 teaspoon salt, ¼ teaspoon black pepper, and cayenne pepper to taste to the saucepan.

  4. Stir in ½ pint boiling water and bring the sauce to a boil.

  5. Carefully remove the fish from the pot, peel off the skin, pour the sauce over it, and serve hot.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Capers + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,222 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Onion + caperstop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,381 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Capers + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together2,088 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Ray
The main protein; gentle poaching keeps its flesh moist and tender.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the sauce a smooth, rounded body.
Flour (in the method)
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells when heated with the liquid.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the sauce and cuts the richness of the butter.
Capers
Contribute sharp, briny acidity that gives the sauce its piquant character.
Lemon
Adds acidity and aroma to the poaching liquid, lightly flavouring the fish.

The step that matters

Bring the sauce to a boil after adding the boiling water. Flour thickens only when its starch swells and cooks near boiling. Stirring while it heats prevents lumps, and simmering long enough removes the raw floury taste.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, capers, vinegar, lemon, pepper):

  1. Shallotbetter flavor fit
  2. Mustardbetter flavor fit
  3. Kalebetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, capers, vinegar, lemon, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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