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Baked Carp

A baked carp served with a sauce of onions, port wine, broth, and pickled mushrooms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 22 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Baked Carp

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare and bake

  1. Procure a good-sized carp and stuff it.

  2. Place the carp in a baking dish with the onions, carrot, turnip, celery, and bouquet of herbs.

  3. Moisten with port wine, water, salt, pepper, and oil.

  4. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for about 2 hours.

  5. Check if done by inserting a knife; it's done if the flesh leaves the bone easily.

  6. Transfer to a serving dish without a napkin.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, mince the large Spanish onion and the two common onions.

  2. In a saucepan, heat the salad oil and sauté the onions until yellow.

  3. Add port wine and flour, mixing well.

  4. Pour in the broth or water and add glaze or brown gravy.

  5. Boil, then drain the stock from the cooked vegetables and add them to the sauce.

  6. Simmer until thick, skimming as needed.

  7. Stir in Harvey sauce, essence of anchovies, pickled mushrooms, and cayenne pepper.

  8. Pour the sauce over the carp and 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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Carp
Forms the main body of the dish, supplying the flesh that is baked and served.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the onions and liquid.
Salad oil
Carries the onion flavour and helps the onions brown as they sauté.
Onions
Build the sweet, savoury base of the sauce as they soften and turn yellow.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to both the fish and the sauce.
Pickled mushrooms
Add a tangy, savoury bite to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce with flour. Flour must be cooked with the onions and liquid while stirring, then simmered, so starch swells and the sauce thickens smoothly without lumps or a raw floury taste.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, celery, parsley, thyme, port wine, pepper):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, celery, parsley, thyme, port wine, pepper. 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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