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To Stew Carp

A carp stew flavored with vinegar, Madeira wine, veal stock, herbs, and finished with a creamy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 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 ↓

To Stew Carp

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Scale and clean the carp, reserving the liver and roe.

  2. In a deep pan, combine the vinegar, mace, cloves, salt, Jamaica pepper, sliced onions, and herbs. Soak the fish in this mixture for 1 hour.

Stew and make the sauce

  1. Transfer the fish to a stew pan with the soaking liquid, chopped liver, Madeira, and veal stock. Stew the fish for 1 to 2 hours, depending on their size. Keep warm over hot water.

  2. Strain the cooking liquid and add the beaten egg yolks, cream, flour, and butter. Stir constantly until thickened.

Finish and serve

  1. Just before serving, add lemon juice to the sauce and pour it over the carp.

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. Basil + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  3. Parsley + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they set with gentle heat, giving it a rich, smooth body.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the sauce a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the strained cooking liquid so the sauce holds together.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce and balances its sweetness.
Vinegar
Acidity in the soaking mixture that helps firm the flesh and flavours the fish.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg yolk sauce until thickened. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if overheated, so the sauce must be stirred constantly over gentle heat. Constant stirring keeps it smooth as the yolks and flour thicken it.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, clove, pepper, onion, parsley, basil, thyme):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, clove, pepper, onion, parsley, basil, thyme. 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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