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Plaice, Filleted, and Stewed with Oysters

A dish of fried plaice fillets served in a sauce made with oysters, anchovies, white wine and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Plaice, Filleted, and Stewed with Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the plaice

  1. Fillet the plaice by skinning it, cutting down the backbone, and removing the flesh from head to tail.

  2. Trim the ends of the fillets and set aside.

  3. Dry the fillets with a soft cloth, sprinkle with salt, and dredge lightly with flour.

Fry the fillets

  1. Fry the fillets in plenty of hot dripping until nicely browned.

Make the sauce

  1. Beard and drain the oysters, reserving their liquor.

  2. In a stewpan, combine the oyster liquor, white stock or water, white wine, anchovies, pepper, salt, and nutmeg.

  3. Simmer gently for a few minutes, then add the fillets and the butter rolled in flour.

  4. Cook until the sauce is smooth and thick.

  5. A minute or two before serving, add the oysters to the sauce until heated through.

Serve

  1. Serve the plaice on a hot dish with the sauce poured around it.

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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Plaice
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking to tender, flaky fillets.
Oysters
Add a briny, savoury flavour to the sauce as they heat through.
Butter rolled in flour
Flour thickens the sauce and butter adds richness and smoothness.
Anchovies
Add a deep savoury, salty note that enriches the sauce.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the rich sauce.

The step that matters

Frying the dredged fillets. Fillets need hot fat and enough room so they brown rather than steam. Browning builds flavour through the Maillard reaction, while flour dredging helps create a golden crust and holds the fish together.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, oyster, white wine, pepper, butter):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, oyster, white wine, pepper, butter. 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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