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The Brill

A boiled brill seasoned with lemon, salt, vinegar, and served with lemon, parsley, horseradish, and lobster sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

The Brill

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Thoroughly clean the brill and remove the scales.

  2. Do not cut off the fins; rub the fish with lemon juice and a little salt.

Poach

  1. Place the brill in a fish kettle with enough cold water to cover it.

  2. Add a handful of salt and 1 tablespoon of vinegar to the water.

  3. Bring the water to a boil, then reduce to a simmer for 10 to 20 minutes, depending on the size of the fish.

  4. Skim the surface to maintain the fish's color.

Serve

  1. Serve the brill on a napkin, garnished with lemon, curled parsley, and horseradish.

  2. Accompany with lobster sauce in a tureen.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + horseradishtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together562 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Lemon + horseradishtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Vinegar + horseradishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Vinegar + parsleytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,477 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

Brill
The main fish; its firm flesh holds together during gentle poaching.
Vinegar
Acidity in the poaching water helps keep the fish's flesh firm and white.

The step that matters

Skim the surface while simmering. Foam and scum rising from the fish can cloud the water and dull the surface color. Keeping the liquid at a gentle simmer rather than a hard boil keeps the flesh intact and the appearance clean.

Swap the horseradish

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, lemon, parsley):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Broccolifits better
  3. Kalefits better
  4. Horseradishthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, lemon, parsley. 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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