Skip to main content
Main

Boiled White Pish

Boiled white fish served with egg sauce and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Vinegar and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,477 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Boiled White Pish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook

  1. Dress the fish nicely.

  2. Cover the fish with boiling water in a fish kettle and season well with coarse sea salt. Remove the scum as it rises.

  3. Simmer for 8 to 10 minutes per pound.

  4. When about half done, add a little vinegar or lemon juice.

Serve

  1. Take out the fish, drain, and dish carefully.

  2. Garnish with sprigs of parsley and serve with egg sauce.

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. Vinegar + parsleytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,477 recipes

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

  2. Fish + parsleytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,341 recipes

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

  3. Fish + saucetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,487 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Parsley + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Is the main component, cooked gently in simmering water until its flesh turns opaque and flakes.
Vinegar or lemon juice
Adds a bright acidity that balances the mild flavour of the fish.
Egg sauce
Adds richness and a creamy, fat-based contrast to the lean, delicately flavoured fish.

The step that matters

Simmering the fish. Water that boils hard toughens and breaks up delicate fish flesh. Keeping the water at a gentle simmer cooks the fish evenly and keeps it moist and intact.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, vinegar, egg, sauce):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Dillfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, vinegar, egg, sauce. 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

Fried FishFried Fish120 recipesFish CroquettesFish Croquettes81 recipesScalloped CodScalloped Cod69 recipesBroiled FishBroiled Fish68 recipes