Skip to main content
Main

Stewed Fish

A stew of fish simmered with pork or butter, onions, flour, and herbs, served with potato garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stewed Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Remove the heads and bones from the fish.

  2. Boil the heads and bones in 3 pints of water for 30 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. Slice the pork and fry until browned.

  2. Slice the onions and fry them in the pork fat.

  3. Stir in the flour and cook for 3 minutes, stirring constantly.

  4. Pour the boiling water from the heads and bones over the onion mixture and simmer for 10 minutes.

Stew and serve

  1. Cut the fish into 3-inch square pieces, season with salt and pepper, and place in a stew pan.

  2. Strain the sauce over the fish, cover tightly, and simmer for 20 minutes.

  3. Taste the sauce and adjust seasoning if necessary.

  4. Serve on a large platter, garnished with potato balls and parsley.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Forms the main body of the stew and flakes into the finished dish.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they fry, building flavor into the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the liquid.
Pork
Its fat fries the onions and adds savory richness to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour into the onions. Flour must be cooked and stirred constantly so it blends smoothly and thickens without lumps or a raw starchy taste.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, pork, flour, pepper, potato):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, pork, flour, pepper, potato. 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.

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesFried FishFried Fish120 recipesPork CakePork Cake107 recipesRoast PorkRoast Pork82 recipes