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To Steam Fish

A simple method of steaming fish fillets or whole fish with lemon, pepper, salt, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

To Steam Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Fillet the fish if possible.

  2. If you don't have a fish steamer, butter a soup plate lightly and place the fish on it.

  3. Sprinkle the fish with lemon juice, pepper, and salt.

  4. Cover the fish with a buttered paper.

  5. Place a lid or another plate on top.

Steam and serve

  1. Place the soup plate on top of a saucepan half-filled with boiling water.

  2. Let it boil for about 30 minutes.

  3. If the fillets are thick or a whole fish is being cooked, turn it once.

  4. When the fish is no longer transparent and looks thick and white, it is cooked.

  5. Serve with the juice poured around.

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

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

  2. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Whiting + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together510 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Whiting + lemontop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together238 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Whiting, sole, or haddock
Forms the main body of the dish; its flesh turns firm and opaque as it cooks.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the mild flavour of the fish.
Butter
Lightly coats the plate and paper so the fish does not stick and stays moist.

The step that matters

Judging when the fish is done. Fish cooks quickly and becomes dry and rubbery if overcooked. Watch for the flesh turning opaque and thick white, which shows the proteins have set.

“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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