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Fish.— French Fashion. Braise Maigre for Boiling Fish In.

A fish braised in a sauce of butter, vegetable soup, herbs, garlic, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Fish.— French Fashion. Braise Maigre for Boiling Fish In.

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the braising liquid

  1. In a large kettle, melt the butter and add the vegetable soup, thyme, sweet basil, garlic, parsley, scallions, cloves, onion, carrot, salt, and pepper.

  2. Tie the head of the fish securely and place it in the kettle with the ingredients, ensuring it does not float.

Braise and finish

  1. Cook over low heat, covering with buttered paper and basting occasionally with the sauce.

  2. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed.

  3. Once the fish is cooked, strain part of the sauce through a fine mesh to reduce it to a jelly for glazing.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Thyme + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  4. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Basil + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Vegetable soup
Forms the cooking liquid that gently braises the fish and carries the flavour of the aromatics.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the aromatics and the sauce.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma to the braising sauce as it softens.
Carrot
Adds subtle sweetness and body to the braising sauce.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma that mellows during the low-heat braise.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the braising liquid.

The step that matters

Keeping the fish from floating. If the fish rises out of the liquid, the exposed part cooks unevenly and dries out. Tying the head securely and keeping the fish submerged helps it cook gently and evenly in the braising sauce.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, thyme, basil, clove, garlic, parsley, carrot):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, thyme, basil, clove, garlic, parsley, carrot. 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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