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Tench, Aux Fines Herbes

A fish dish where tench are boiled, seasoned with herbs, wrapped in paper, and broiled, served with sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Chive and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 450 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Tench, Aux Fines Herbes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Dip the tench into boiling water, then scale and clean them.

  2. In a bowl, steep the fish in oil with chives, shallots, parsley, thyme, bay leaf, pepper, and salt.

  3. Wrap the fish in paper with the seasoning.

Cook and serve

  1. Broil the wrapped fish until cooked through.

  2. Serve with either white sauce or pepper sauce in a boat, or remove the paper and serve the sauce around the fish on the dish.

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. Chive + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  4. Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tench
Provides the main body of the dish, cooked gently in its wrapping to stay moist.
Oil
Carries the herbs and seasoning into the fish and helps keep its surface moist under heat.
Shallots
Add a mild, sweet onion-like aroma that flavours the fish as it steeps.
Chives
Add a delicate, fresh onion flavour that brightens the fish.
Parsley
Adds a fresh, green herbal aroma to the fish.

The step that matters

Broil the wrapped fish until cooked through. Fish cooks quickly and turns dry and firm when overcooked. Checking for flesh that is opaque and flakes easily helps keep it moist while ensuring it is safely cooked through.

Swap the chive

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shallot, parsley, thyme, pepper):

  1. Parsnipfits about as well
  2. Chivethe original
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Carrotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, parsley, thyme, pepper. 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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