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Stewed Fish

A fish stew made with butter, wine, catsup, onions, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Stewed Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Brown the fish in butter before stewing.

  2. Mix the flour and butter together before adding them to the pan.

Stew

  1. Add the sliced onions, claret, Madeira wine, catsup, and spices to the pan.

  2. Stew the fish until cooked through.

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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Browns the fish and, mixed with flour, forms a roux that thickens the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce when cooked with butter.
Claret
Adds acidity and liquid that flavours the stewing sauce.
Madeira wine
Adds depth and sweetness to the sauce.
Onions
Soften during stewing and add savoury sweetness to the sauce.
Catsup
Adds tang and sweetness to the sauce.

The step that matters

Browning the fish in butter. Browning creates colour and roasted flavour through the Maillard reaction. Fish that is crowded or not dry on the surface will steam instead, so it browns poorly before stewing.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, butter, madeira wine, flour, mace, clove, nutmeg):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, madeira wine, flour, mace, clove, nutmeg. 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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