Why it works: Fish and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,488 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Boiled Fish
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Clean the fish in warm water, scraping the skin thoroughly.
Soak the fish in cold water with a little salt for a few minutes, then rinse in cold fresh water and wipe dry.
Boil
Tie the fish in a floured cloth and place it in cold water with 1 tablespoon of salt.
Bring the water to a boil, then reduce heat to maintain a slow boil for 30 minutes (45 minutes for halibut).
Boil an additional 5 minutes for each extra pound of fish.
Serve
Carefully remove the fish from the cloth and place it on a platter.
Remove as much skin as possible, garnish with parsley or lemon slices, and serve with drawn butter or fish 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 + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,488 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together16,675 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together28,563 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
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Fish + parsleytop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,341 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Fish
- Is the main protein, cooked gently in simmering water until it turns flaky and tender.
- Coarse sea salt
- Seasons the fish and water, flavouring the flesh as it cooks.
- Flour
- Dusts the cloth so the fish is held neatly and the skin is less likely to stick.
The step that matters
Maintaining a slow boil. A rolling boil can break up delicate flesh and toughen it, so the water should stay at a gentle simmer while the fish cooks through evenly.
Swap the parsley
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, flour, butter):
- Capersfits better
- Nutmegfits about as well
- Parsleythe original
- Tarragonfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against fish, flour, butter. 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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