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Stewed Carp

Carp stewed in beef gravy with onion, cloves, pepper, port wine, anchovies, mustard and walnut ketchup, served with fried bread and horseradish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Stewed Carp

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Lay the cleaned carp in a stew-pan.

  2. Add beef gravy, onion, cloves, Jamaica pepper, black pepper, and port wine.

Stew

  1. Simmer covered until nearly done.

  2. Stir in chopped anchovies, made mustard, walnut ketchup, and butter.

  3. Shake the pan and let the gravy boil for a few minutes.

  4. Add soy sauce.

Serve

  1. Serve with fried bread, fried roe, horseradish, and lemon.

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 + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 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. Clove + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,829 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Mustard + walnuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together849 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
Is the main fish that gives the dish its body and flesh.
Beef gravy
Provides the liquid base and savoury richness in which the fish stews.
Port wine
Adds acidity and sweetness that lift and round the flavour of the gravy.
Anchovies
Contribute salty, savoury depth that rounds out the sauce.
Made mustard
Adds sharpness that cuts the richness of the gravy.
Butter
Rolled in flour, it thickens the gravy and adds richness and body.

The step that matters

Shake the pan and let the gravy boil for a few minutes. Boiling thickens the flour-butter mixture into the gravy and blends the flavours, while shaking distributes the thickened sauce evenly without breaking up the fish.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Walnutthe original
  4. Sesamefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, clove, pepper, port wine, mustard, ketchup. 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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