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Boiled Fish— Mrs. L. A. Lancel

A boiled fish seasoned with onion, garlic, cloves, allspice, bay leaves, carrots, celery, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Boiled Fish— Mrs. L. A. Lancel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the court bouillon

  1. Fill a fish kettle with enough water to cover the fish.

  2. Add onion, garlic, cloves, allspice, bay leaves, carrots, celery, and vinegar.

  3. Cover tightly and boil for 30 minutes.

Cook and serve

  1. Prepare the fish, which will take 15 to 20 minutes to cook.

  2. Serve the fish cold.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Allspice + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,021 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
The main protein, cooked gently in the seasoned liquid until just opaque and flaky.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the poaching liquid and the fish.
Onion
Contributes savoury sweetness and aroma to the poaching liquid.
Carrots
Add sweetness and aroma to the poaching liquid.
Bay leaves
Add a subtle aromatic herbal flavour to the poaching liquid.

The step that matters

Keep the fish from boiling hard. Vigorous boiling toughens the proteins and breaks the fish apart. Poaching at a gentle simmer cooks it evenly and keeps the flesh moist and tender.

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, clove, allspice, carrot, celery, vinegar, fish):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, clove, allspice, carrot, celery, vinegar, fish. 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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