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Trout, Stewed in Wine

A stew of trout simmered with wine, gravy, and aromatics, finished with lemon, anchovy, and mushroom ketchup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Trout, Stewed in Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Empty, clean, and dry the trout.

Stew

  1. In a stewpan, combine the trout, gravy, wine, onion, peppercorns, allspice, cloves, and salt.

  2. Simmer gently for 30 to 45 minutes until the fish is cooked through.

  3. Carefully remove the trout and strain the gravy.

Finish the sauce and serve

  1. Thicken the gravy with brown thickening and add lemon juice, anchovy essence, and mushroom ketchup.

  2. Strain the sauce over the fish and serve hot.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Anchovy + ketchuptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together479 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Allspice + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,083 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Trout
Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender as it gently simmers in the liquid.
Claret, port, or madeira
Adds depth and acidity to the stewing liquid, flavouring both the fish and the sauce.
Gravy
Provides the savoury base of the sauce and carries the flavour of the other ingredients.
Onion
Releases sweetness and savoury flavour into the stewing liquid as it cooks.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds concentrated savoury, umami depth to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer gently. A gentle simmer cooks the trout through while keeping the flesh tender and intact. A hard boil can break the fish apart and toughen the proteins, so keep the liquid barely bubbling.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (allspice, clove, lemon, anchovy, mushroom, ketchup):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against allspice, clove, lemon, anchovy, mushroom, ketchup. 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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