Skip to main content
Main

Boiled Whitefish

A boiled whitefish served with butter, pepper, and sliced hard‑boiled eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Boiled Whitefish

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the fish

  1. Lay the fish open and place it in a dripping pan, back side down.

  2. Nearly cover the fish with water and add the salt.

  3. Cover tightly and simmer (do not boil) for 30 minutes.

Dress the fish

  1. Dress the fish with gravy, butter, and pepper.

  2. Garnish with sliced eggs.

Make the gravy

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the flour and stir.

  3. Gradually add the boiling water.

  4. Boil for a few minutes.

  5. Stir in the shredded hard-boiled eggs before serving.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Whitefish + flourtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together55 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Whole whitefish
Forms the main body of the dish; gentle poaching keeps its flesh moist and flaky.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, savoury flavour to the dressing and gravy.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as its starch swells in the hot liquid.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add body and a soft, rich texture to the gravy and garnish.

The step that matters

Simmer, do not boil, the fish. Vigorous boiling toughens and breaks up delicate fish flesh. Gentle simmering heat cooks the fish through while keeping it moist and intact.

“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

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes