Why it works: Fish and capers work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 165 recipes. Both carry octanal, which smells fat, soap. The science ↓
Steamed Fish
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Wash the fish in cold water.
Wrap the fish in a cloth and place it in the steamer.
Steam and serve
Steam the fish for at least one hour until thoroughly cooked.
Serve the fish with caper sauce.
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.
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Fish + caperstop 13% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together165 recipes
Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Fish
- Forms the main protein that is cooked gently by steam until it turns opaque and flaky.
- Coarse sea salt
- Seasons the fish directly, bringing out its flavour.
The step that matters
Steaming until thoroughly cooked. Fish is done when its flesh turns opaque and flakes easily. Because the fish is large and wrapped, undercooking leaves the centre raw. Steaming for the full stated time, with the fish wrapped, lets heat reach the thickest part evenly.
“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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