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Boiled White Fish

A whole white fish is simmered in salted water, then served with a butter‑flour gravy and sliced hard‑boiled eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Fish and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,488 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Boiled White Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the fish

  1. Lay the fish open and place it in a dripping pan with the back down.

  2. Nearly cover the fish with water and add 2 tablespoons of coarse sea salt.

  3. Cover tightly and simmer (do not boil) for 30 minutes.

Dress and garnish

  1. Dress the fish with gravy, butter, and pepper, and garnish with sliced hard-boiled eggs.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, melt the butter in a saucepan, add the flour, and stir for a minute.

  2. Gradually add the boiling water, stirring constantly, and boil for a few minutes.

  3. Add the sliced hard-boiled eggs to the sauce.

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. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Fish + eggtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,782 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Whole white fish
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking gently in simmering water until it turns flaky.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the sauce and carries taste through the dish.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the melted butter and water into a smooth sauce as its starch swells with heat.

The step that matters

Simmer, do not boil, the fish. Vigorous boiling heats the fish too fiercely, so its proteins tighten and toughen and the flesh can break apart. Gentle simmering cooks it evenly and keeps it tender.

“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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