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Boiled Whitefish, Caper Sauce

A boiled whitefish served with caper sauce and plain boiled potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Whitefish and sauce share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Boiled Whitefish, Caper Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Scale and clean the whitefish and remove the head.

  2. Place the fish in a fish kettle and add enough water to cover it.

  3. Add the onion, cloves, and lemon juice.

Cook and serve

  1. Cook until done, then remove the fish and place it on a drainer.

  2. Serve with caper sauce and plain boiled potatoes.

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. Whitefish + saucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Lemon + potatotop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Whitefish
Provides the main body of the dish, cooked gently in simmering liquid until it flakes.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the mild flavour of the fish and the sauce.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness to the cooking liquid, which gently flavours the fish.

The step that matters

Cook until done. Fish is cooked when its flesh turns opaque and flakes easily. Overcooking toughens the proteins and dries the flesh, so check it early and remove it promptly.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (whitefish, onion, lemon, fish, sauce, potato):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against whitefish, onion, lemon, fish, sauce, potato. 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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