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Carp, Baked

A baked carp seasoned with lemon, parsley, shallots, butter, and cream, served with a lemon‑butter sauce and garnished with gherkins and lobster coral.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Carp, Baked

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Squeeze the juice of 1-2 lemons over the cleaned carp and let it marinate for 1 hour.

  2. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Bake

  1. Place the carp in a baking tin and sprinkle with minced parsley, shallots, salt, and pepper.

  2. Drizzle oiled butter over the carp and cover with white paper.

  3. Bake for over 40 minutes until cooked gently.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. In a small saucepan, melt butter and stir in cream, juice of ½ lemon, and additional salt and pepper.

  2. Transfer the carp to a serving dish, pour the sauce over it, and garnish with chopped gherkins and lobster coral.

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 + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Lemon + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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 and cooks gently to a tender, flaky texture.
Lemon juice
Acidity brightens the fish and helps firm its surface during marinating.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, keeping the fish moist as it bakes and enriching the sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and body to the sauce, giving it a smooth, mellow texture.
Shallots
Provide a mild, sweet onion aroma that perfumes the fish as it bakes.

The step that matters

Bake for over 40 minutes until cooked gently. Fish protein sets at moderate heat and becomes dry and tough if overcooked. Cooking gently and checking for flaky, opaque flesh keeps the carp moist.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, parsley, pepper, butter, cream, lobster):

  1. Spinachfits about as well
  2. Shallotthe original
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Potatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, parsley, pepper, butter, cream, lobster. 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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