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Water Souchet

A fish dish of flounders or dabs boiled in salted water, served with parsley, brown bread, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Water Souchet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Clean the flounders or dabs thoroughly.

  2. Boil them in water with a little coarse sea salt until tender.

Serve

  1. Carefully remove the fish with a slicer, keeping the white side up.

  2. Place the fish in a vegetable dish filled with boiling water and add 2-3 sprigs of fresh parsley.

  3. Serve immediately with thin slices of brown bread and butter.

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

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

  2. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Parsley + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 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

Small flounders or dabs
Provide the delicate white fish that is poached whole and served as the main dish.
Fresh parsley
Adds a fresh, herbal aroma to the hot poaching water and fish.
Brown bread
Offers a slightly nutty, sturdy base to accompany the delicate fish.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that complements the mild, lean fish.

The step that matters

Boil until tender, not overcooked. Fish proteins set and toughen when overheated, so boiling too long makes the flesh dry and firm. Stopping as soon as the flesh is opaque and tender keeps it moist and delicate.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter):

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Sagefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, 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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