Name: Carp, Sauce Matelote
Ingredients: 1 carp; ½ cup wine; vegetables (as per next recipe); 1 pint water; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; a few cloves; a few peppercorns; matelote sauce (as directed on page 96)

Why it works: Wine and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,958 recipes. Both carry cis-isoeugenol, which smells clove, spicy. The science ↓

Carp, Sauce Matelote

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the carp

Place the carp in a small oval fish kettle.
Add wine, vegetables, water, salt, cloves, and peppercorns.
Cover the kettle and simmer over moderate heat for about 1 hour, depending on the size of the carp.

Serve

Once cooked, drain the carp well and place it on a serving dish without a napkin.
Pour matelote sauce over the carp before serving.

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.

Wine + clovetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,958 recipes

Shared aroma: cis-isoeugenol (clove, spicy).
Clove + saucetop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,089 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Wine + saucetop 32% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,936 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Carp: Is the main protein that becomes flaky and tender as it simmers gently in liquid.
Wine: Adds acidity and aromatic flavour to the poaching liquid, lightly seasoning the fish.