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Fish Stew, or Hotch Potch

A fish stew made with carp, barbel, tench, eel-pout, eel, and other ingredients, simmered in a butter and wine gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 22 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Fish Stew, or Hotch Potch

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Scale, open, and clean the fish, then cut them into pieces.

Make the sauce

  1. In a stewpan, make a gravy with butter and the lat meat.

  2. Cook the gravy until browned.

  3. Remove the lat meat and add small onions and mushrooms.

  4. Brown the onions and mushrooms.

  5. Remove the onions and mushrooms.

  6. Mix the gravy with flour.

  7. Pour in enough wine to cook the fish.

  8. Add salt, pepper, cloves, parsley, thyme, laurel, and garlic.

  9. Increase the heat.

  10. When the wine boils, add the fish, placing the largest pieces at the bottom.

  11. Cover the fish with thin pieces of fat meat, onions, and mushrooms.

  12. Cook over high heat for about 10 minutes.

  13. Taste the sauce and adjust seasoning if necessary.

  14. Add butter mixed with flour.

  15. Add a small amount of brandy.

Serve

  1. Add slices of toasted bread.

  2. Layer the toasted bread on a platter.

  3. Place the most beautiful pieces of fish on top.

  4. Garnish with crawfish.

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 + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  3. Mushroom + winetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,632 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-propylphenol (allspice, anise).

  4. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,663 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the gravy and the butter mixture so the sauce becomes body-rich and cohesive.
Butter
Carries flavour and, browned in the gravy, adds a nutty richness to the sauce.
Wine
Provides acidity and liquid that cooks the fish and builds the sauce's flavour.
Mushrooms
Add savoury, earthy depth and moisture to the sauce as they brown.
Small onions
Browning them adds sweetness and savoury depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Cook the gravy until browned. Browning the butter, lat meat and flour builds deep roasted flavour through the Maillard reaction. Pale gravy stays flat, and burnt gravy turns bitter.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, meat, mushroom, flour, wine, pepper, clove):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, meat, mushroom, flour, wine, pepper, clove. 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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