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To Collop Halibut

Halibut collop served in a butter‑flour broth with herbs, soy sauce, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

To Collop Halibut

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Cut the halibut into cutlets about 1 inch thick.

  2. Fry the cutlets until golden brown.

Make the broth

  1. Combine the bones, onions, celery, and sweet herbs in a pot.

  2. Boil the mixture for 30 minutes.

  3. Strain the broth.

  4. Thicken the strained broth with butter and flour.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the fried fish to the broth.

  2. Simmer for 30 minutes.

  3. Season with salt, pepper, nutmeg, mace, soy sauce, lemon juice, and lemon peel.

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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Celery + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,331 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Halibut
Forms the main body of the dish and flakes into the finished collop.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory depth to the broth as they cook down.
Celery
Adds aromatic flavor to the broth as it simmers.
Butter
Enriches the broth and, with flour, gives it a smooth, thickened body.
Flour
Thickens the strained broth into a silky sauce when cooked with butter.

The step that matters

Frying the cutlets until golden brown. Browning creates flavor through the Maillard reaction, while fish fried too long or too hot dries out and toughens. Cooking only to golden keeps the fish tender for the later simmer.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, celery, butter, flour, pepper, nutmeg, sauce):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, celery, butter, flour, pepper, nutmeg, sauce. 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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