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Stewed Fish

A stew made with fish, pork or butter, onions, flour, herbs, and potatoes, simmered in a broth of fish bones.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stewed Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Remove the heads and bones from the fish.

  2. Boil the heads and bones in 3 pints of water for 30 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. Slice the pork.

  2. Fry the pork until browned.

  3. Slice the onions.

  4. Fry the onions in the pork fat.

  5. Stir in the flour.

  6. Cook for 3 minutes, stirring constantly.

  7. Pour the boiling water from the bones over the onion mixture.

  8. Simmer for 10 minutes.

Stew and serve

  1. Cut the fish into 3-inch pieces.

  2. Season the fish with salt and pepper.

  3. Place the fish in the stewpan.

  4. Strain the sauce over the fish.

  5. Cover tightly.

  6. Simmer for 20 minutes.

  7. Taste the sauce.

  8. Adjust seasoning if necessary.

  9. Garnish with potato balls.

  10. Garnish with parsley.

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

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

  2. Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  4. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the onions and fat.
Pork
Its rendered fat browns and flavours the onions and sauce.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they cook, adding body and flavour to the sauce.
Fish
Provides the main protein, which becomes tender as it simmers in the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer the fish gently. Fish protein breaks down and toughens or falls apart when boiled hard, so a gentle simmer keeps the pieces intact and tender.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, pork, flour, pepper, potato):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, pork, flour, pepper, 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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