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Trout in White Sauce

A trout simmered in a light white wine and water broth, finished with a butter‑flour sauce thickened with eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: White wine and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,083 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Trout in White Sauce

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the trout

  1. Boil the trout gently in water and white wine until just covered.

  2. Keep the fish hot after cooking.

Make the sauce

  1. In a separate pan, boil the cooking liquid with butter and flour.

  2. Beat the eggs with cold water, then pour them into the sauce while stirring until thickened.

Serve

  1. Serve the trout in the sauce, adding salt to taste.

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. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. White wine + flourtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,082 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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, cooked gently so it stays moist and tender.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the sauce, carrying flavour and a smooth mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a sauce when boiled with butter.
Eggs
Thicken the sauce as they set when stirred in, giving it body and a silky texture.

The step that matters

Adding the eggs to the sauce. Egg yolks thicken only at moderate heat; if the sauce boils hard or the eggs are added too fast, they can scramble into lumps. Stirring constantly and pouring slowly keeps the sauce smooth.

“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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