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Soused Fish

A dish of boiled fish simmered in a vinegar-based stock with fennel, bay leaf, cloves, peppercorns, lemon, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Fennel and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 723 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Soused Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Place the neatest pieces of boiled fish in a deep dish.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, boil fish stock with an equal amount of vinegar.

  2. Add green fennel, bay leaf, cloves, peppercorns, lemon slices, and salt to the stock.

  3. Pour the mixture over the fish.

  4. Gently turn the fish occasionally to ensure even seasoning.

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. Fennel + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together723 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Fennel + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together350 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Fish + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,889 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce and carries the seasoning into the fish.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the sauce a sharp, tangy bite.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, vinegar, fennel, lemon):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, vinegar, fennel, lemon. 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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