Skip to main content
Main

To Stew Carp

A stew of carp simmered with broth, onion, herbs, carrot, salt, port wine, lemon, and brown gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,873 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

To Stew Carp

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and stew

  1. Scale and clean the carp carefully.

  2. Place the carp in a stewpan and cover with beef or veal broth.

  3. Add the onion, savory herbs, carrot slices, and salt.

  4. Stew the carp gently for nearly an hour.

Finish and serve

  1. Mix brown gravy with port wine and lemon juice.

  2. Carefully dish the carp and pour the sauce over it.

  3. Serve immediately.

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. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Carrot + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,351 recipes

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

  5. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Carp
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming flaky and tender when gently stewed.
Beef or veal broth
Provides moisture and savory flavor for the stewing liquid.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth to the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce.
Brown gravy
Gives the sauce body, color and a savory meaty flavor.

The step that matters

Stew the carp gently. Holding the liquid at a gentle simmer keeps the delicate fish flesh moist and intact, while a hard boil would toughen the proteins and break the fish apart.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, onion, clove, carrot, port wine):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Plumfits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, clove, carrot, port wine. 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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipes