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Stewed Halibut

Stewed halibut seasoned with salt, nutmeg, cayenne, gin, vinegar, and butter, baked and served with a sauce of onion, horseradish, anchovy essence, capers, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Stewed Halibut

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the fish

  1. Season the halibut pieces with coarse sea salt and let them stand for 30 minutes.

  2. Rinse the fish.

  3. Add grated nutmeg, cayenne pepper, gin, vinegar, and butter rolled in bread crumbs to the fish.

  4. Place the fish in a baking dish.

Bake

  1. Cook in a 300°F (150°C) oven, basting frequently with the liquid until well done.

  2. When nearly done, add capers.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. For the sauce, stew the onion in some of the fish boiling water.

  2. Add grated horseradish and essence of anchovies to the onion.

  3. Remove the onion when soft.

  4. Add a piece of butter just before serving the sauce over the fish.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + caperstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together211 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Capers + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,381 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Halibut
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked through gently in the oven until firm and flaky.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and the bread-crumb coating helps protect the fish while it bakes.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that brightens the fish and balances its richness.
Onion
Softened in water to form the base of the sauce, adding sweetness and body.
Essence of anchovies
Adds deep savory flavor to the sauce.
Capers
Add a briny, sharp accent to the finished dish.

The step that matters

Basting until well done. Halibut is lean and dries out quickly in the oven. Frequent basting with the cooking liquid keeps the surface moist while the fish cooks through, so it stays tender rather than tough.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (nutmeg, pepper, gin, vinegar, butter, bread, capers):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against nutmeg, pepper, gin, vinegar, butter, bread, capers. 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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