Name: Broiled Trout with Brown Gravy
Ingredients: 1 large trout, scaled and dressed; 2 tablespoons butter; 2 tablespoons flour; 2 cups boiling water; 1 tablespoon finely chopped highly seasoned pickle; 1 teaspoon coarse sea salt; ¼ teaspoon black pepper

Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Broiled Trout with Brown Gravy

Ingredients

1 large trout, scaled and dressed
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons flour
2 cups boiling water
1 tablespoon finely chopped highly seasoned pickle
1 teaspoon coarse sea salt
¼ teaspoon black pepper

Directions

Prepare the trout

Wash the trout in cold water and dry it with a clean towel.
Lay the trout between the bars of a well-buttered double-wire gridiron.

Cook the fish and make the gravy

Broil the trout over a hot fire until cooked through.
In a saucepan, stir together the butter and flour over medium heat until they begin to brown.
Gradually stir in the boiling water, then add the chopped pickle, salt, and pepper.
Once the sauce boils, pour some onto a hot platter for the fish and serve the rest in a sauce bowl.

Serve

Transfer the cooked trout carefully to the platter with the sauce and serve hot.

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.

Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together50,459 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

Trout: Is the main protein, cooked through by broiling over a hot fire.
Butter: Enriches the gravy and, when browned with flour, adds a nutty flavour.
Flour: Thickens the sauce when cooked with butter and then stirred into boiling water.
Highly seasoned pickle: Adds sharp, acidic flavour that cuts through the richness of the gravy.

The step that matters

Browning the butter and flour. Cooking the roux over medium heat until it just begins to brown builds flavour and colour, but if it darkens too far it turns bitter, and if it is stopped too early the gravy tastes raw and floury.

“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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Broiled Trout with Brown Gravy