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Boiled Brill

A boiled fish served with butter, lemon, parsley, and lobster coral garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Boiled Brill

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the fish and trim off the fins.

  2. Rub the fish with lemon juice.

Poach

  1. Place the fish in a pot with enough water to cover it, adding salt and vinegar.

  2. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and let it simmer gently until cooked, about 10 minutes for a small fish.

  3. Lift the fish out, drain, and brush with oiled butter.

Serve

  1. Serve on a hot dish, garnished with chopped parsley and lobster coral in alternate bars.

  2. Arrange parsley and scalloped lemon around the fish.

  3. Serve with a suitable sauce.

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. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Vinegar + parsleytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,477 recipes

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

  5. Butter + lobstertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Brill
Is the main fish, cooked whole by gentle poaching in the liquid.
Butter
Brushed on after cooking to add richness and a glossy finish to the fish.
Vinegar
Added to the poaching water to give a slight acidity that brightens the flavour.
Lemon juice
Rubbed onto the fish to add fresh acidity and aroma.
Lobster coral
Adds colour and a rich, briny flavour as a garnish.

The step that matters

Simmer gently, do not boil. A vigorous boil toughens the delicate protein of the fish and can break it apart. Gentle simmering cooks it evenly and keeps the flesh moist and tender.

“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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