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Small Fish Fricasseed

A dish of fried small fish and fish balls simmered in a wine and catsup gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Small Fish Fricasseed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Fry the fish until golden brown and drain them.

  2. Remove the meat from another small fish and chop it finely.

  3. Mix the chopped fish with grated bread, lemon peel, chopped parsley, pepper, coarse sea salt, nutmeg, egg yolks, and a little butter.

  4. Form the mixture into small balls and fry them.

Make the gravy

  1. In a saucepan, combine good gravy thickened with flour and red wine, then bring to a boil.

  2. Add cayenne pepper, catsup, and lemon juice to the gravy.

Finish and serve

  1. Place the fried fish and balls into the gravy, simmer for a few moments, and serve garnished with lemon.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Bind the chopped fish and crumbs into balls that hold their shape when fried.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the fish and balls.
Grated bread
Adds body to the fish mixture and helps it hold together.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the gravy.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the fish mixture.

The step that matters

Forming and frying the fish balls. The mixture is soft and bound only by yolks and crumbs, so it can fall apart. Chilling it briefly before shaping and frying it in hot fat helps the balls set and keep their shape in the gravy.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, butter, bread, lemon, parsley, pepper, egg):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, bread, lemon, parsley, pepper, egg. 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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