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Boiled White Fish

Boiled white fish served with a butter and flour gravy, garnished with sliced hard-boiled eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Fish and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,488 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Boiled White Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the fish

  1. Lay the fish open in a dripping pan with the back down.

  2. Nearly cover the fish with water and add salt.

  3. Cover tightly and simmer (do not boil) for 30 minutes.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Dress the fish with gravy, butter, and pepper.

  2. Garnish with sliced hard-boiled eggs.

  3. For the sauce, melt butter in a pan, then stir in flour and gradually add boiling water.

  4. Boil for a few minutes and then add sliced hard-boiled eggs.

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. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

White fish
Gentle simmering cooks the flesh through while keeping it moist and tender.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it heats with the boiling water, giving it body.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the sauce and the dressed fish.

The step that matters

Simmer, do not boil, the fish. Keep the water just below a boil and cover tightly. A hard boil toughens the delicate fish proteins and breaks the flesh apart, while gentle heat cooks it evenly and keeps it moist.

“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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