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Fish in White Sauce

Halibut served with a sauce made from onion, red pepper, water, butter, flour, and almond extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fish in White Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Flake the cold boiled halibut and place it in a steamer to heat without drying.

Make the sauce

  1. Boil the bones and skin of the fish with the onion and red pepper in ½ cup of water.

  2. Reduce the stock to ½ cup.

  3. Mix the butter and flour together, then add to the stock to thicken.

  4. Stir in the almond extract.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the halibut and garnish with parsley.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold boiled halibut
Provides the main protein, flaked into the dish as the body of the meal.
Onion
Adds savoury aroma and depth to the stock as it simmers.
Flour
Its starch swells when heated in the liquid, thickening the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and smooth texture, and coats the flour so it blends in.

The step that matters

Thickening the stock with butter and flour. Flour must be fully blended with the butter before it meets the hot stock, otherwise it clumps. Stirring as it heats lets the starch swell evenly, giving a smooth sauce rather than a lumpy one.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, butter, flour, almond, parsley):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, flour, almond, parsley. 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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