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Fish, Patties, &C

Fish served with a lemon and wine sauce, garnished with lemon and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Ketchup and anchovy match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 479 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Fish, Patties, &C

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare and bake

  1. Sew up the belly of the fish and place it on a dish.

  2. Cover the fish with flour and butter.

  3. Pour ½ cup of water into the dish and bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven.

  4. Once baked, remove the fish and strain the gravy through a fine sieve.

Make the sauce

  1. Add 1 teaspoon of lemon pickle, 2 teaspoons of browning, 1 tablespoon of walnut ketchup, ⅓ cup of white wine, 1 anchovy, and 1 slice of lemon to the gravy.

  2. Boil the mixture for 10 minutes, then thicken it with butter and flour.

Serve

  1. Serve the sauce in a sauceboat alongside the fish, garnished with lemon and crispy parsley.

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. Ketchup + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together479 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Fish + anchovytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together637 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Lemon + walnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,149 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Lemon + white winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Forms the main dish; its juices and fat flavour the gravy as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the fish and helps the gravy taste rounded.
Flour
Thickens the gravy, giving it body when combined with butter.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the savoury sauce.
Walnut ketchup
Contributes concentrated savoury, slightly sweet and tangy depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Thickening the boiled sauce with butter and flour. Flour needs to be cooked in fat and heated long enough to swell and thicken smoothly; adding it to a liquid without a proper roux can leave lumps or a thin, starchy taste.

“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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