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Root Gravy for Ragouts of Fish

A root vegetable gravy for fish ragouts, made with turnips, carrots, celery, onions, garlic, and spices, finished with wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Root Gravy for Ragouts of Fish

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt 4 tablespoons of butter in a stewpan over medium heat.

  2. Add the turnips, carrots, celery, eschalots, garlic, and onions; fry until they glaze.

  3. Stir in 4 tablespoons of butter rolled in flour, salt, cayenne, mace, and cloves.

  4. Moisten with ½ cup of fish stock or cold water, and add the parsley, thyme, basil, and mushrooms if using.

  5. Stew for 15 minutes, then add ⅔ cup of light white wine.

  6. After 5 minutes, strain the gravy.

  7. Serve with fish or vegetables.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the gravy and carries the vegetables while they fry and glaze.
Butter rolled in flour
Flour-coated butter thickens the gravy as it melts into the liquid.
Turnips
Add body and a mildly sweet, earthy flavour as they stew down.
Carrots
Contribute sweetness and body to the stewed base.
Onions
Build savoury depth as they fry and soften into the base.
Light white wine
Adds acidity and brightness to the finished gravy.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turnip, carrot, celery, garlic, onion, butter, flour):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turnip, carrot, celery, garlic, onion, butter, flour. 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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