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Perch with Wine

A fish dish where perch is cooked in stock, wine, herbs, and a butter‑flour sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Perch with Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the perch

  1. Combine perch, stock, white wine, bay leaf, garlic, parsley, scallions, cloves, and salt in a saucepan.

  2. Cook until the fish is done.

  3. Remove the perch and strain the liquid.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. In a separate pan, mix the strained liquid with butter and flour, stirring until thickened.

  2. Add pepper, nutmeg, and anchovy butter to the sauce.

  3. Drain the perch well and serve with the sauce.

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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  4. Garlic + parsleytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Perch
Provides the main protein, which firms and turns opaque as it cooks in the poaching liquid.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the poaching liquid, flavouring both the fish and the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and, combined with flour, forms the base that thickens the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the strained liquid into a smooth sauce when cooked with butter.
Anchovy butter
Adds a salty, savoury depth to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring the butter and flour into the strained liquid. Stirring keeps the flour evenly dispersed so the sauce thickens smoothly instead of forming lumps. Cooking the flour briefly removes its raw taste.

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white wine, clove, parsley, butter, flour, pepper, nutmeg):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, clove, parsley, butter, flour, pepper, nutmeg. 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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