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Skate, Boiled in Stock

Skate pieces boiled in seasoned stock with lobster shell, sweet herbs, onions, and a sauce of ketchup, soy sauce, and claret.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Ketchup and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Skate, Boiled in Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Skin the skate and cut it into square pieces.

  2. In a pot, combine stock, fish trimmings, lobster or crab shell, sweet herbs, and onions.

  3. Simmer gently for 1 hour.

  4. Strain the stock and thicken it with brown thickening.

  5. Add pepper, coarse sea salt, ketchup, soy sauce, and claret.

Cook and serve

  1. Put the skate in the pot and boil until done, about 15 to 20 minutes.

  2. Serve the skate with the sauce poured over.

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. Ketchup + saucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Lobster + saucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Lobster + ketchuptop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together48 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Fish + lobstertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together326 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Skate
Its firm, flaky flesh is the main protein that cooks through in the simmering liquid.
Brown thickening
Starch that thickens the strained stock into a sauce that coats the fish.
Onions
Release sweetness and savory depth into the stock during the long simmer.
Claret
Adds acidity and wine flavor to the finished sauce.
Soy sauce
Adds salty, savory depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer the skate until just done. Fish proteins set quickly and turn dry and tough when overcooked, so the skate should be removed as soon as it is opaque and flakes easily.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, lobster, pepper, ketchup, sauce):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, lobster, pepper, ketchup, sauce. 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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