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The Brill

A boiled brill seasoned with salt, vinegar, lemon, and served with lemon, parsley, horseradish, and lobster coral.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

The Brill

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Clean the brill and remove the scales.

  2. Do not cut off the fins. Rub the fish with lemon juice and a little salt.

Poach

  1. Place the brill in a fish kettle with cold water, salt, and vinegar to cover it.

  2. Bring the water to a boil, then simmer for 10 to 20 minutes depending on the size of the fish.

  3. Skim the surface to maintain the fish's color.

Serve

  1. Serve on a napkin, garnished with lemon, curled parsley, horseradish, and sprinkle with lobster coral.

  2. Serve with lobster sauce in a 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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + horseradishtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together562 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Lemon + horseradishtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Vinegar + horseradishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Brill
Is the main protein, cooked gently in simmering water so it stays moist and tender.
Vinegar
Adds a little acidity to the poaching water, which helps keep the fish firm and bright.
Lemon juice
Adds bright acidity to the fish, lifting its flavour before cooking.

The step that matters

Simmer, don't boil, and skim the surface. Once the water boils, a gentle simmer keeps the flesh from toughening and breaking apart. Skimming removes foam and particles that would otherwise cloud the liquid and dull the fish's appearance.

“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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