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Boiled Fish, Sauce Hollandaise

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Fish and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,782 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Boiled Fish, Sauce Hollandaise

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Remove the fins and gills from the fish.

  2. For large fish, place in cold water; for small fish, use boiling water.

  3. Add salt to the water.

  4. Heat the water gradually for large fish to ensure thorough cooking.

  5. For a small fish, it will be cooked when heated through.

  6. To prepare the bouillon, use cheap wine or a vinegar-water mix with herbs.

  7. Twist the fish into an 'S' shape and tie with string or cloth for easy lifting.

  8. For the Hollandaise sauce, heat white sauce and stir in egg yolks and vinegar or lemon juice.

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 + eggtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,782 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Fish + vinegartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,036 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  3. Vinegar + eggtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Vinegar and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,922 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

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