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Stock Fish

A fish dish simmered in water, served with clarified butter and hot potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Fish and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,488 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Stock Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Soak the stock fish in water for 12 hours.

  2. Remove the skin and cut the fish into pieces.

Cook

  1. In a saucepan, add the fish and cover with cold water.

  2. Bring to a boil, skim the surface, and then simmer for 1 hour.

  3. Remove the fish and let it drain.

Serve

  1. Serve hot with clarified butter and hot 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. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Fish + potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together134 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

What each ingredient does

Stock fish
Is the main protein, softened by soaking and then gently simmered until tender.
Clarified butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour as a serving accompaniment.
Hot potatoes
Adds starch and bulk, soaking up the flavour of the fish and butter.

The step that matters

Bring to a boil, skim the surface, then simmer. Skimming removes foam and impurities that would cloud the liquid and taint flavour. Simmering gently rather than boiling hard keeps the fish tender and intact instead of tough and falling apart.

“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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