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How to Boil Fish

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Haddock and whiting match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 103 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

How to Boil Fish

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil.

  2. For codfish and ling, boil until cooked through.

  3. For pollacks, hakes, haddocks, and whiting, place in boiling water and keep boiling gently until cooked.

  4. Serve with sauces like melted butter mixed with mustard.

  5. For cod tongues and sounds, steep in warm milk and water for 3-4 hours, then scrape and cleanse.

  6. Boil tongues and sounds in fresh milk and water until tender.

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. Haddock + whitingtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together103 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Haddock + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together764 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Haddock + mustardtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together64 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Whiting + mustardtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (haddock, whiting, butter, milk):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Onionfits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against haddock, whiting, butter, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

More boiled fish recipes

Sauce for 18Egg Sauce for 7with Sauce 5Plain Sauce for 5Butter Sauce for 4Slices 3 See all 210 →

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