Skip to main content
Main

Boiled Trout

A simple boiled trout seasoned with vinegar, carrot, onion, butter, parsley, cloves, sea salt, and herbs.

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

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Boiled Trout

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scale, clean, and gut the trout.

  2. Wipe the trout dry with a cloth.

  3. Place the trout in a fish kettle or saucepan.

Poach

  1. Add enough water to cover the fish.

  2. Add vinegar, carrot, onion, butter, parsley, cloves, and herbs.

  3. Bring to a boil and simmer until the trout is cooked through.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Trout
Forms the main body of the dish and is cooked gently in the poaching liquid.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the poaching liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the poaching liquid, softening the flavour.

The step that matters

Simmer until the trout is cooked through. Boiling the liquid hard can break up the delicate flesh and make it dry or ragged. Keeping it at a gentle simmer cooks the fish evenly while it stays moist and intact.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, carrot, onion, butter, parsley):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, carrot, onion, butter, parsley. 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.

More boiled trout recipes

Fillets 3 See all 29 →

You might also like

Carrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes