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To Boil Tench

A boiled Tench fish served with lemon, parsley, melted butter, and cucumber slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

To Boil Tench

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Drain the water from the Tench fish carefully to avoid breaking the skin.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil the fish until cooked through.

  2. Serve garnished with sliced lemon and chopped parsley mixed in melted butter.

  3. Accompany with slices of cucumber.

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 + cucumbertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,564 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + cucumbertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,067 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tench fish
Provides the main protein; boiling cooks it through to a firm, flaky texture.
Melted butter
Adds richness and fat that carries the parsley and complements the mild fish.

The step that matters

Draining the water from the fish carefully. Handling the fish gently keeps the skin intact, which holds the flesh together and keeps it from breaking apart during and after cooking.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, lemon, parsley, butter. 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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