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Forcemeat for Perch

A stuffed perch filled with a forcemeat mixture of shrimp, anchovy, bread crumbs, butter, parsley, shallot, thyme, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Forcemeat for Perch

Ingredients

Directions

Poach and bone the fish

  1. Clean the fish and boil it in salted water for 7‑8 minutes.

  2. Remove the fish, cut off the head and tail, split it open, and bone it.

Make the stuffing

  1. Pound the fish flesh with the shrimps, anchovy, soaked bread crumbs, butter, parsley, shallot, thyme, salt, and pepper until well mixed.

Stuff and cook

  1. Fill the fish with the mixture and sew up the opening.

  2. Cook the stuffed fish as desired.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Freshly-boiled shelled shrimps
Supply the main body of the stuffing, giving it a firm, tender, slightly sweet bite.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and bind the pounded mixture so it holds together inside the fish.
Milk
Softens the soaked bread crumbs, adding moisture so the stuffing stays tender.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, moister texture in the stuffing.
Filleted anchovy
Contributes savory depth and a salty, umami note to the stuffing.
Shallot
Adds a mild, sweet aroma that softens the savoury flavour of the filling.

The step that matters

Boiling the fish for 7‑8 minutes. Fish proteins set quickly as they heat. Overcooking firms and dries the flesh and makes it harder to bone and stuff neatly, while underdone flesh stays too soft to hold its shape.

Swap the thyme

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shrimp, anchovy, bread, milk, butter, parsley, shallot):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymethe original
  3. Garlicfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against shrimp, anchovy, bread, milk, butter, parsley, shallot. 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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