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Carp, Baked

Baked carp stuffed with oysters, anchovies, breadcrumbs, and herbs, served with a buttery mustard sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Carp, Baked

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 the filling

  1. Clean and scale the carp; remove the gills from the oysters and simmer them for 15 minutes in a little fish stock or water.

  2. Cut the oysters into small pieces without cooking them, and also cut the anchovies into very small pieces.

  3. Mix the breadcrumbs, oysters, anchovies, parsley, shallot, cayenne, and salt; add the egg yolk, oyster liquor, and the stock from simmering the oyster gills.

  4. Stuff the mixture into the carp and sew up the opening; brush the outside with egg and cover with breadcrumbs.

Bake and make the sauce

  1. Place the carp in a baking dish and cook gently at 350°F (175°C) for about 1 hour, basting frequently with hot butter.

  2. For the sauce, melt the butter, stir in the flour, add the stock, and stir until the sauce boils; simmer for 2-3 minutes.

  3. Add the mustard, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, and the strained gravy from the baking dish.

Serve

  1. Garnish the fish with cut lemon and parsley, and serve the 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. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  3. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 whole around the stuffing.
Oysters
Add a briny, savoury flavour to the stuffing and its cooking stock.
Breadcrumbs
Bind the stuffing and form a crisp, browned coating on the outside.
Egg yolk
Binds the stuffing so it holds together while baking.
Flour
Thickens the butter and stock into the sauce.
Anchovies
Add concentrated savoury depth to the stuffing.

The step that matters

Gentle baking with frequent basting. Cooking gently at a moderate heat keeps the delicate carp flesh moist and from drying out or breaking apart, while frequent basting with hot butter carries fat over the surface to help it brown evenly.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, sauce, shallot, egg, pepper, butter, flour):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Nutmegfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, sauce, shallot, egg, pepper, 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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