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Stewed Halibut

A halibut stew made with fish broth, vinegar, mushroom ketchup, onions, sweet herbs, garlic, water, butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Stewed Halibut

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Combine fish broth, vinegar, mushroom ketchup, onions, sweet herbs, garlic, and water in a stew pan.

  2. Stew for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture until clear.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the halibut and stew until tender.

  2. Thicken the sauce with butter and flour, then serve.

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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Mushroom + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,700 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Mushroom + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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 becomes tender through slow stewing.
Fish broth
Provides the savoury liquid base that the sauce is built on.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the sauce and helps it feel smooth.
Flour
Thickens the sauce so it clings to the fish instead of running thin.
Onions
Release sweetness and aroma into the stewing liquid as they cook.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the stewed liquid.

The step that matters

Thicken the sauce with butter and flour. Flour needs to be cooked into the fat and liquid so it thickens smoothly without lumps or a raw starchy taste. Adding it to hot liquid in small amounts while stirring helps it disperse evenly.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, vinegar, mushroom, ketchup, onion, garlic, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, vinegar, mushroom, ketchup, onion, garlic, butter. 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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