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Whiting, Broiled

Broiled whiting coated in flour, served with a sauce of egg yolk, water, tarragon vinegar, butter, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 213 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Whiting, Broiled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Wash the whiting in salted water and dry thoroughly.

  2. Brush the fish with oil and roll in flour.

Broil

  1. Broil over a clear, bright fire for 6 to 12 minutes, depending on size.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, beat the egg yolk with water and tarragon vinegar in a heatproof bowl.

  2. Place the bowl in a saucepan of boiling water and stir for 1 minute.

  3. Add pepper, salt, nutmeg, parsley, and the flour‑butter mixture.

  4. Stir until thickened, then add lemon juice and serve without boiling.

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. Tarragon + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together213 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Tarragon + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  4. Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolk
Thickens the sauce as it heats, giving it a smooth, creamy body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the sauce a smooth, velvety texture.
Flour
Coats the fish and, kneaded into butter, helps thicken the sauce.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour of the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir the sauce over boiling water without letting it boil. Egg yolk thickens at gentle heat but scrambles if it gets too hot, leaving the sauce grainy. Keeping the bowl over simmering rather than boiling water and adding lemon juice off the heat protects its smooth texture.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (whiting, liver, flour, tarragon, vinegar, egg, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against whiting, liver, flour, tarragon, vinegar, egg, pepper. 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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