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Halibut, Stewed

Stewed halibut with beer, onion, parsley, butter, lemon juice, and mushroom ketchup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Halibut, Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Stew the fish

  1. Place the halibut head and shoulders in a saucepan and cover with beer.

  2. Add the onion, parsley, salt, pepper, and butter.

  3. Stew gently for about 30 minutes until the fish is tender.

  4. Carefully remove the fish and drain it.

Finish the sauce

  1. Thicken the sauce with a little flour and butter.

  2. Stir in lemon juice and mushroom ketchup.

  3. Bring the sauce to a boil.

  4. Serve some sauce with the fish and the rest in a tureen.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Clove + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Halibut head and shoulders
Provides the main body of the dish, becoming tender and flavoring the cooking liquid as it stews.
Beer
Forms the stewing liquid and adds a malty, savory flavor to the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and, kneaded with flour, thickens the sauce as it melts into it.
Flour
Thickens the sauce when cooked with butter, giving it body.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, savory sauce.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds deep, savory umami flavor to the sauce.

The step that matters

Bring the sauce to a boil. Flour-thickened sauce must be brought to a boil so the starch granules swell and fully thicken it. Adding lemon juice and mushroom ketchup before boiling lets them blend in evenly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beer, clove, parsley, pepper, butter, flour, lemon):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beer, clove, parsley, pepper, butter, flour, 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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