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Baked Carp

A whole carp stuffed, coated in breadcrumbs, baked with stock, onions, herbs, port wine, anchovies, and served with a gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Baked Carp

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the carp

  1. Clean the carp and stuff it with the prepared stuffing. Sew it up and brush the outside with egg yolk.

  2. Cover the carp with plenty of bread crumbs and baste with oiled butter.

Bake

  1. Place the carp in a deep earthen dish with stock, onions, bay leaves, herbs, port wine, and anchovies.

  2. Cover the dish and bake for 1 hour.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Once done, pour the liquid from the dish and keep the fish warm.

  2. Heat the liquid with butter rolled in flour, mustard, a pinch of cayenne, and soy.

  3. Serve the fish garnished with lemon, parsley, and horseradish, with the gravy in a sauce-tureen.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Basil + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  3. Basil + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Carp
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked gently in the surrounding liquid.
Egg yolk
Brushed on the outside to help the crumb coating adhere and brown.
Bread crumbs
Form a crust over the fish that helps protect it during baking.
Port wine
Adds depth and a touch of sweetness to the cooking liquid, which becomes the gravy.
Anchovies
Melt into the cooking liquid, adding savoury depth to the gravy.
Butter rolled in flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth gravy and adds richness.

The step that matters

Baking the covered carp. The dish must be covered so the fish steams gently in the stock and wine rather than drying out. Baking uncovered or too long can toughen the flesh and reduce the liquid needed for the gravy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, bread, butter, fish, basil, thyme, parsley):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, bread, butter, fish, basil, thyme, 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.

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