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To Boil Halibut

A halibut is boiled in salted water with saltpetre, then served with horseradish or parsley and egg sauce or melted butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Hazelnut and horseradish share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

To Boil Halibut

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place the halibut in a fish kettle with the back side down.

  2. Cover the fish with cold water and dissolve the salt and saltpetre in it.

Cook

  1. Bring the water to a boil and skim off any foam.

  2. Reduce heat and let it simmer until cooked, about 30 minutes for 4 pounds of fish.

Serve

  1. Drain the fish and garnish with horseradish or parsley, and serve with egg sauce or melted butter.

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. Hazelnut + horseradishtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Fish + horseradishtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together178 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

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

  4. Horseradish + eggtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together694 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  5. Hazelnut + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together518 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

What each ingredient does

Halibut
Provides the main protein, which firms and turns opaque as it cooks.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the fish and water, helping flavour penetrate the flesh.
Saltpetre
Helps preserve the fish's colour and firm texture during cooking.

The step that matters

Reduce heat and let it simmer until cooked. Boiling vigorously can toughen and break up delicate fish flesh. A gentle simmer cooks the fish evenly and keeps it moist and tender.

Swap the hazelnut

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

  1. Walnutfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Peasfits better
  4. Hazelnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, horseradish, 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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