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Observations on Cleaning and Dressing Fish

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Observations on Cleaning and Dressing Fish

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Wash the fish thoroughly but do not soak it too much to preserve flavor.

  2. Add a little coarse sea salt to boiling water for firmness.

  3. Boil the fish gently to prevent breaking.

  4. For fresh cod and whiting, rub a little salt down the backbone and let it rest for a day.

  5. Soak fresh water fish in strong salt water to remove muddy smell.

  6. Scald smaller fish in salt water, then dry and dress them.

  7. Remove fish from water immediately when done to avoid a woolly texture.

  8. To serve, place the fish on a folded damask napkin, garnish with horseradish, parsley, and lemon.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Horseradish + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together562 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Horseradish + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Fish + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

Swap the horseradish

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Horseradishthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, parsley, lemon, egg, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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