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White Stewed Fish

A stewed fish dish flavored with onion, saffron, nutmeg, ginger, parsley, eggs, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 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 ↓

White Stewed Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onion and fish

  1. Chop the onion finely.

  2. Cook the onion in a stewpan with oil without browning.

  3. Strain off the oil.

  4. Leave some onion in the stewpan.

  5. Place the rest of the onion in a basin for the balls.

  6. Clean the fish.

  7. Cut the fish into nice-sized pieces.

Cook the fish and sauce

  1. Lay the fish pieces in the stewpan with water.

  2. Sprinkle the fish with seasoning.

  3. Place the balls on top of the fish.

  4. Cook gently until done.

  5. Pour the sauce over the fish.

  6. Let the sauce simmer gently until thick.

  7. Shake the pan occasionally to prevent curdling.

  8. Stir the saffron into the sauce.

Serve

  1. Carefully transfer the fish to a dish.

  2. Arrange the balls around the fish.

  3. Pour some sauce over the fish.

  4. Serve the remainder of the sauce in a sauce tureen.

  5. Sprinkle with parsley before serving.

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. Lemon + saffrontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together538 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Parsley + saffrontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  5. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the fish balls and help thicken the sauce as they set with heat.
Fish liver
Adds richness and body to the fish balls, giving them a soft, tender texture.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help bind the fish balls so they hold their shape.
Onion
Provides savoury flavour as the base of both the sauce and the fish balls.

The step that matters

Shake the pan occasionally to prevent curdling. Egg-thickened sauces can curdle if they get too hot or boil. Gentle, steady heat and occasional movement keep the sauce smooth as it thickens.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, lemon, egg, parsley, pepper, saffron, nutmeg):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, lemon, egg, parsley, pepper, saffron, nutmeg. 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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