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Do Bake Carp

A carp stuffed with a bread crumb and herb forcemeat, baked with fish stock, port wine, and anchovies.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Do Bake Carp

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Clean, scale, and empty the carp.

  2. Make a forcemeat by mixing bread crumbs, lemon peel, parsley, mace, pepper, salt, butter, and egg yolks.

  3. Fill the carp with the forcemeat and brush the outside with egg.

  4. Cover the carp with bread crumbs.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the fish in a baking dish with butter, fish stock, port wine, and anchovies.

  2. Cover the dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour.

  3. Pour off the gravy and strain it into a sauce.

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 + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  5. Bread + fishtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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, cooking gently in the covered dish to stay moist.
Bread crumbs
Absorb juices and bind the forcemeat, then form a crisp-leaning coating on the outside.
Egg yolks
Bind the forcemeat and enrich its texture as it cooks.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the forcemeat and the baking dish, aiding browning and flavor.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth to the cooking liquid that becomes the sauce.
Fish stock
Provides moisture and savory flavor to the cooking liquid that forms the gravy.

The step that matters

Covering the dish and baking for 1 hour. Baking covered in liquid keeps the delicate fish moist; cooking too long or uncovered can dry the flesh and reduce the gravy too far.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, lemon, parsley, pepper, butter, egg, fish. 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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