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Normandy Fish

A fish dish from Normandy cooked with butter, flour, spices, sherry, brandy, and tarragon vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Normandy Fish

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fish

  1. Melt the butter in an earthenware dish over coals.

  2. Stir in the flour, nutmeg, black pepper, red pepper, parsley, and mushroom ketchup.

  3. Add the fish cut into pieces as large as two fingers.

  4. Pour the sherry or Madeira and brandy over the fish.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover the dish and seal the edges with dough to keep in steam.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until done.

  3. Serve in the dish it was cooked in and add tarragon vinegar.

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. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

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

  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

Fish
Provides the main body of the dish, cooking gently in the sealed steam to stay moist.
Butter
Carries the seasonings and adds richness, helping the fish stay moist as it cooks.
Flour
Lightly thickens the butter and juices so they cling to the fish.
Sherry or madeira
Adds wine flavour and acidity that deepens the sauce as it bakes.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds concentrated savoury, umami depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Sealing the dough cover. If the edges are not sealed tightly, steam escapes and the fish dries out instead of gently poaching in its own juices and the wine-butter sauce.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, flour, pepper, parsley, mushroom, ketchup. 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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