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Boiled Halibut

A boiled halibut served with drawn butter, parsley, salt, vinegar, and catsup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Boiled Halibut

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Wash and scrape the halibut clean.

  2. Rub coarse sea salt over the fish.

  3. Wrap the fish in a floured cloth.

Boil and serve

  1. Place it in boiling water and boil for 45 minutes.

  2. Serve with drawn butter and parsley.

  3. If leftovers remain, place in a dish and sprinkle with salt, vinegar, and catsup.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Parsley + vinegartop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,477 recipes

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

  5. Butter + vinegartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

Flour and butter 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

Halibut
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking into firm, flaky pieces.
Flour
Forms a cloth wrapping that shields the fish surface during boiling.
Drawn butter
Adds richness and fat to the mild fish when served.

The step that matters

Boil for 45 minutes in a wrapped cloth. Boiling at a steady simmer cooks the fish through gently; overcooking dries and toughens the flesh, so the timed boil matters.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Jalapenofits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, vinegar. 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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